Sealing Club Special Case File 1: Eyes in the Dark
by UnmovingGreatLibrary
Summary: A sketchy psychic's act turns too convincing when he accidentally taps into Maribel's worst nightmares, unleashing dozens of monsters into Kyoto. Hopelessly outmatched, the Sealing Club is left with one option: Follow a fifty-year-old letter from Renko's grandma to enlist the help of a grumpy immortal.
1. Preface

**Some author's notes up front:** As many of you already know, this story has been finished on AO3 for about half a year. I'd intended to post it here pretty soon after finishing it, but kept putting it off because redoing the formatting on 110,000 words is _really boring_. But, that's all done now, so here it is! I hope to post a quarter of the fic per day over the next few days, so if you're subscribed to me, I apologize in advance for the spam.

That's all I've got. Everything from here on out is Renko. Good luck with that.

* * *

This document covers the events of my life from August 22, 2069 to September 24, 2069.

Depending on your viewpoint, you might know this as the period where my grades tanked, where I was arrested and subsequently escaped from jail, or where I disappeared from the face of the Earth. It was a pretty eventful period, and a lot of people are probably still dealing with the fallout. So, I am preparing multiple copies of this document, and will be mailing them out to concerned parties. If you're reading this, you're probably one of them.

Please find your applicable category below for further details:

 *** Parents:** If you are mine or Maribel's parents, let me say this first: We're very sorry for disappearing without informing you. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. We'd like you to know that we're both okay and miss you. We don't have cell phone reception right now, but we'll call you when we go to mail these documents, so hopefully you should know what's going on by the time you read this. Sorry again.

 *** Police:** If you're with the Tokyo police department, this will hopefully explain the events of September 18, 2069. If you're with the Kyoto police department, I hope that this clears up some confusion, and ask to have all charges against me dropped. I know that lying to the police is a crime, but I think you'll agree that the truth was too strange to believe. As for the car, I intend to pay for the damages when I have money, but I'd like it on record that Maribel wasn't responsible.

 *** Yuuta Ishimori:** I'm sorry for revealing the details of your abilities to this many people, but they're vital to revealing the truth on these matters. I know that this paints you in kind of a bad light early on, but to be fair, you come off as a bit of a jerk. I'm including you on the distribution because I thought you deserved to know the full truth of what happened. (Maribel says hi.)

 *** Emi Usami:** Hi, sweetie! This is probably too scary for you (also there are bad words in it, because I am a dissolute college student), so I've addressed it to your parents and asked them to give it to you when you're older. I hope to be back by then, but it's best to have contingencies. Anyway, I inherited the Sealing Club from _my_ aunt, so it only seemed fair for me to give you the chance. You can have the official club supplies when you get to high school, if my belongings don't end up in a dumpster.

 *** My landlady:** Please don't throw my belongings in a dumpster. Hopefully this will explain the rash of damage around the apartment complex during the time period in question. (You can stop reading around chapter 10 or so, it's all covered by that point.) You can keep my deposit. I authorize my parents to collect my belongings from my apartment.

 *** Future Sealing Club members:** Finally, since the Sealing Club is technically registered with Kyoto University, I've sent a sealed copy of this report to the department of student affairs, to be provided to anybody who tries resurrecting the club on campus. At this point, I'm not sure who that would even be if not Emi, but stranger things have happened.

With that out of the way, a few words on the format and contents:

I know that it probably seems strange to keep a file documenting my life in such detail, but I wanted to make sure that future generations of Sealing Club members had sound records to work off of. My grandmother, club founder Sumireko Usami, was nowhere near as organized. She met dozens of youkai when she was younger, and yet she could never remember anything useful about them. She met a tanuki who might have been Danzaburou, and her notes recorded nothing except that the tanuki had a fluffy tail and could transform people by blowing smoke at them. Quote: "It was really annoying."

Grandma Sumireko was good at many things, but documentation wasn't one of them.

So, to add more rigor to our study of the supernatural, I created the Supernatural Entity Files and Case Files in the first month that I ran the Sealing Club. Due to the sheer scope of the events it covers, this file is way too long for the normal case file format. It would normally be Sealing Club Case File #28, but I'm designating it as Sealing Club Special Case File #1. This file contains a lot of personal information, but I feel like it was necessary to truly convey the events that happened. Summarizing it wasn't going to do anybody any favors.

That means you're going to have to put up with my attempts to describe emotions. I'm sorry in advance.

The contents of this package, not including the title page, should be 639 pages long. I can't find a stapler here, so you're just going to have to deal with that. I've also included the Supernatural Entity Files for all of the noteworthy entities that we encountered. This includes the files on myself and Maribel, which should be immediately after this introduction. All of our other case files and entity files are publicly accessible on the Kyoto University Sealing Club website.

Finally: I've been advised that I probably shouldn't include any clues that would let somebody extrapolate Gensokyo's location. I'm normally all about revealing the truths of the world, but in this case, I have to agree. I'd like to apologize to future generations of paranormal investigators for this omission.


	2. Entity File 2: Renko Usami

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #2:  
Renko Usami**

 **Type:** Human  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Determining the location and time by viewing the stars. (Human GPS)  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Unknown, naturally occurring. Possibly psychic.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** N/A, is a Sealing Club member.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** N/A  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human  
 **Size:** Normal human.  
 **Other Notes:** Third president of the Sealing Club. I have the ability to tell the time from looking at the stars, and my location by looking at the moon. We've documented this in Experiment Logs #1-6, #11, and #18. My abilities work even in the daytime, but I don't think I could determine my location anywhere but Earth, and I can only determine the time in Japanese Standard Time.

Nobody is sure where my ability came from or how it works, even me. It's possible that it might just be an exceptional mundane ability. My grandmother had psychic powers, so my abilities may also be psychic in nature.

Since Maribel has joined the Sealing Club, I've been exposed to the Netherworld (Case File #6) and the TORIFUNE ruins (#25.) Visiting these unearthly locations doesn't seem to have changed me in any way, but I can still say that I have more experience with the supernatural than most people.


	3. Entity File 4: Maribel

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #4  
Maribel Hearn**

 **Type:** Human **  
Supernatural Abilities:** Detection and manipulation of boundaries.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Unknown, naturally occurring.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** N/A, is a Sealing Club member.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** N/A  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human  
 **Size:** Normal human.

 **Other Notes:** Vice president of the Sealing Club. Her abilities are documented in Experiment Logs #7-10, #12-15, #17, and #19. To summarize them: She has the ability to sense 'boundaries,' the conceptual borders between locations. Even though something like this would seem to be entirely based on human perception, she's demonstrated the ability to manipulate them, opening gateways between distant points that are only conceptually related.

The limits of this ability are unknown, but her control of it is sporadic at best. At times, Maribel loses control of her abilities, sometimes even traveling to other places while sleeping. This all recently escalated after the TORIFUNE ruins incident (Case File #25). On the abandoned satellite TORIFUNE, we encountered an entire alien ecosystem. One of the creatures there (a chimera, Entity File #5) attacked Maribel. She escaped from the incident with only a light surface wound, but it got infected with an otherworldly disease. Maribel developed a fever and minor nausea, but the real effects were the visions. Where before, she had only gotten occasional peeks into other worlds, she began seeing them on a regular basis. Medical treatment of the disease did not seem to impact Maribel's visions, and they are ongoing to this day.

The link, if any, between this extraterrestrial virus and Maribel's abilities is unknown.

One final note: On the few occasions that we've traveled using Maribel's abilities, it appears that she's able to make a direct zero-distance path between two points. If so, that would mean that her abilities are able to move matter and energy between points at speeds greater than _c_. This would have huge implications, and bears further investigation. Unfortunately, testing for such things requires very sensitive equipment, and is beyond the club's current ability.


	4. Chapter 1

Before I truly start this case file, I think it would be helpful for me to say a few more things about Maribel. Ultimately, she's the main character of this story. I'm just the one who's writing it down. Maribel's case file is a good starting point, but it doesn't cover the things that really matter.

So, let me say this:

As long as I've known Maribel Hearn, she's never been what I would call a normal person. Even as a child, she would see things, strange things that couldn't possibly exist. One time, she says, when she was very little and watching TV, she found herself looking _into_ the television, to a whole world that existed on the other side of the screen. She walked over to it and dipped her arm into the television up to her elbow, and only the timely arrival of her mother stopped her from going farther. She was unharmed, but she remembers that her parents were very shaken by the incident. After pulling her away, they wouldn't let her watch TV unsupervised for a week afterward.

Her parents say that they don't remember this. I don't blame them.

These phenomenon just kept getting more extreme as Maribel grew up, though. In high school, she visited a shrine for New Year's. Turning a corner, she suddenly found herself standing on the slope of a mountain, at the top of a great waterfall. It took her a day and a half to make her way down and find civilization. When she arrived at the bottom, tired and hungry, she found that she was thirty kilometers from the shrine. She'd been reported missing in the meantime. According to the police report that was filed afterward, it was determined that she had probably just strayed away from the shrine and gotten lost. It's obvious from the report that they didn't believe a word of her story.

That was Maribel's entire life before college. Can you imagine it? Encountering the supernatural around every corner, and never having anybody who believes or understands you? It's the loneliest feeling there could be, I think. I originally met Maribel when one of these incidents made it into an occult newsletter I subscribed to—small print, page four, Kyoto Girl Claims To Have Fallen Through Time. We were both freshmen then. Unlike the others, I believed her. Within two weeks, she was the second member of the Sealing Club. Afterward, I made it my goal to be the one person that Maribel could depend on, the one who would believe anything that happened to her.

And then the TORIFUNE incident happened.

The primary details are in Case File #5, and I'm not going to repeat them here. What I didn't mention in there was that afterward, Maribel was quarantined in a sanatorium. Did you know that sanatoriums still exist? I hadn't known that. Her treatment there didn't accomplish much. When they released her, she was still seeing into other planes of existence and having trouble controlling her abilities, even though she'd been subjected to hundreds of tests. The doctors who quarantined Maribel hadn't been concerned with helping her, only with studying the strange virus that she'd caught. Maribel was left no better than she'd been before, still terrified and seeing into other worlds regularly.

So, those were the events that led Maribel to start spending more time around my apartment. Sometimes, when you see the unreal and the fantastic around every corner, having something familiar to anchor you is the best thing you can hope for.

On the particular occasion where this story starts, she'd followed me home after classes, to try taking a nap.

* * *

"Nngh..." With a groan, Maribel rolled over. As was her custom, she'd piled my bed high with pillows and comforters, practically building a nest for herself. Now, they were a mess, half of them dragging on the floor, half tangled up in her limbs. Even if I hadn't heard her tossing and turning, I would have known that she hadn't slept well.

I approached the bed and laid a hand on her forehead. Maribel flinched back from it with a pained grunt, pulling the covers tighter around herself. Whatever the touch had translated to in her dream logic, it didn't seem to be pleasant. She continued to squirm in her sleep, whimpering under her breath, but I kept my hand held to her forehead as gently as I could. Another pillow slid to the floor.

She didn't feel like she had a fever. Unscientific? Probably. But good enough, considering that she hadn't shown any other signs of sickness for weeks. This was, as she'd been experiencing ever since the TORIFUNE incident, a normal nightmare.

I rested a hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. "Merry," I said softly. "Merry, wake up."

No response.

"Merry," I said, raising my voice and shaking her more firmly.

She let out a shivering groan.

"Meeeeerry..."

I poked her forehead, and Maribel jolted to consciousness with a yelp. Her limbs flew in every direction, scattering most of the remaining pillows and blankets. She flailed blindly at the finger on her forehead. I jerked it back to give her some space. Splayed out on the bed, she clutched a pillow to her chest, looking around anxiously and hyperventilating. "O-oh, um," she said, her voice still shaky. "Hi."

"... hi. Sorry. You looked like you were having a nightmare."

"I... guess I was."

"It looked pretty rough."

"I'm getting used to it." Maribel sighed and released her death grip on the pillow, then ran a hand back through her messy hair. After a few deep breaths, her voice grew a little more stable. "Could I get a glass of water, please?"

I hurried to the kitchen and fetched her one. Her hands trembled as she drank it, and the color was only just returning to her face. I really wanted to scoop her up and hold her until she calmed down, but she seemed to need her space. "Thanks," she said, once the glass was empty. "Um, what time is it?"

"About six PM."

"At least I didn't oversleep, then."

"Yeah, thank goodness for those debilitating nightmares. You must save a fortune on alarm clocks."

"I'll make up the sleep tonight." Maribel sat the glass on the end table, then pulled her legs in to sit cross-legged on the bed. "You still haven't eaten, right?"

"Yep. If you want to stick around, I think I've got some coupons for that one sandwich place..."

She shook her head with a soft smile. "What I meant was, I could cook dinner for you! It's been a while since we ate in, right?"

"Oh, uh." I tried to remember what food I had on hand, and mentally cringed at the idea of letting Maribel see it. It's a bad habit of mine. Days of studying and investigations, with nothing but nutritional supplement bars, coffee, and cup noodles to keep me going, until I finally collapse and eat half a week worth of food at once. It's probably not healthy, but as grandma Sumireko told my parents every time she offered me sake while I was growing up: 'She's still young, her liver can take it.' Rather than admitting to that, I said, "I really wouldn't want to make you cook right after waking up..."

"It'll be fun! And, um, it will be like my thanks for putting up with me."

Maribel was already rising out of the bed, and before I could put together a coherent argument, she gave me a peck on the cheek and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

Not that there was much to work with. I was never much of a chef to begin with and, well, I already mentioned the general quality of my diet. Maribel managed to find some longer-lasting ingredients that were still moping around my cupboards from my few prior attempts at cooking: A few onions, some spices, soy sauce, and a single can of asparagus that had been hiding at the back of my pantry for years. Somehow, she managed to shape these parts into an appealing whole, sauteing the asparagus and onions in a sauce that she made out of the rest.

I kept my eyes on her as she worked. Maribel was doing her best to pretend that nothing was wrong, but she couldn't keep hide all of the signs. The way her eyes kept flitting to the shadows in the corner of the room, like she saw something there. Or the way she brushed her fingers across certain spots on her arm then and now.

I didn't press the issue. It hurt me to see her like that. I thought that the best thing I could do for her was to act as normally as possible, to reassure her that everything was fine.

So, we made small talk as she cooked. When we sat down to eat, she laid her phone on the table in front of her and leafed through it as she continued the conversation. "You don't have another class until tomorrow afternoon, right?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," I said. "All I have on Fridays is an afternoon lab. Why?"

"My morning class got canceled. Since we can both sleep in tomorrow, I thought maybe we could do something this evening."

Now, I couldn't hide my concern any longer. "Are you sure you feel good enough to do that?"

"I feel fine, Renko! Really. It's just the usual." Maribel flicked the screen on her phone, sending the contents spinning. "Besides, it's easier to keep my attention on the, um, here and now if I'm doing something. Sitting around just makes it worse."

"Well... I don't think we have any leads we could follow up in one evening." Not that we ever had many solid leads to follow. At the time, we only had five supernatural entities on file: My grandmother, myself, a man I once tracked down from a newspaper article who was able to predict coin flips 89% of the time out of a thousand trials, Maribel, and the chimeras that we encountered during the TORIFUNE incident. For a club dedicated to investigating the supernatural, we weren't very good at actually finding the supernatural until lately. "Is there anything in theaters?"

"Nothing you'd want to see."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The only thing that looks interesting is a romance."

"What about it? I like romances."

"Uh-uh. You like thrillers that have romance _in_ them," Maribel said. "The last time we watched an actual romance, you were asleep before the main characters had even met."

"Oh. Right." I remembered that now. The first fifteen minutes or so, at least. "The problem with those kinds of romances is, they don't push the boundaries of human imagination. With the right software, I could go simulate an entire alien world, complete with wildlife, this weekend. The only limitations on what we can film are the limits of our own imaginations. When you think about it like that, retelling the same few love stories over and over starts to look pretty boring, don't you think?"

"Oh, so I guess _Seas of Ash_ 'pushed the boundaries of human imagination,' hmm?"

I grinned and speared a piece of asparagus. "Actually, yes. Have you ever really looked at the character designs in it, Merry? They actually put a lot of thought into what kind of gear would hold up in that climate, and all of the clothes are designed to be comfortable while still providing good radiation shielding. There was an interview with the lead character designer that—"

"In any case," Maribel said, in her practiced I-concede-this-debate-so-let's-move-on tone, "I'm not in much of a mood for movies, anyway." She flipped her phone around, then slid it across the table toward me. "What do you think about this?"

On the phone's screen was the college's student affairs website, the page that listed upcoming recreational events. I was surprised that she'd even bothered to check it. It usually didn't have much of interest to us, since neither of us really cared about concerts, sorority meet-and-greets, group snowboarding trips, or hiking clubs. She'd centered it on a single entry:

 **The Mysterious PROFESSOR PHANTASMAGORIA.**

 _For three nights only, the occult sensation that has taken Japan by storm will be performing in the Kyoto University Noguchi Memorial Amphitheater. Come for an evening of thrills, chills, and terror, where the veil between the worlds will be cast aside! Admission 2600 yen for students, 3000 yen for others. Nobody under 18 years old will be admitted. August 22, 23, and 24._

"Professor Phantasmagoria," I said flatly.

"Okay, so the name's a bit silly, but it's a lot more occult than going to the movies, right?" Maribel leaned across the table to peer at the phone. "I did a little research on him earlier, actually. From what people have said, he's pretty impressive."

"He's still a stage magician."

"An _impressive_ stage magician. Well, um, actually, looking at his site, it sounds like he's got more of a psychic thing going on. He does some tricks, but it's mostly mind-reading and things."

"That's even worse. If it were stage magic, I could at least try to figure out how the sleight-of-hand works. If it's a fake psychic, it's just word games and planted people in the audience."

"Ah, but if it's a real psychic...!" Maribel grinned. She knew she didn't have to finish that sentence.

Grandma Sumireko was a real psychic. A pretty powerful one, even, when it come to psychokinesis or astral projection. She always told me that, in her entire life, she'd never met another legitimate psychic. On this plane of reality, at least. When it was grandma saying it, things like 'on this plane of reality' actually sounded serious.

Maribel knew this. She knew that I couldn't deny the remote possibility that this man was a legitimate psychic, because my grandmother had been one. She knew that I'd spent years futilely trying to unlock my own psychic potential. She knew that I couldn't turn down the chance to possibly see a real psychic's powers firsthand.

She knew that I couldn't say no. She was right.

At the time, neither of us knew that Professor Phantasmagoria really was a legitimate psychic, but she was right about that too.

I reluctantly agreed. After the meal, we set off.

* * *

The Noguchi Memorial Amphitheater was one of the oldest-looking buildings on campus. Not in a historical sense; it was just _old_. Neither of us had been to it before, and it took us a few minutes of looking over a campus map to figure out where it was even at. It was on the outskirts, it turned out, a good fifteen-minute walk from my apartment. It sat at the bottom of a hill, and as soon as it came into sight, I started having second thoughts. Most of the university's buildings had been refurbished every decade or so, maintained as perfect monuments to modernity to impress the alumni donors and entice prospective students.

This amphitheater... had not. It was a round building of red brick, whose distance from the main campus had apparently meant that it was never a priority for maintenance. The artificial foliage that was planted around it was sun-bleached and dusty. It was one of the few buildings on campus that still had a parking lot, with outdated signage to boot. The only hint that it even belonged to the university was a small letterboard, with the university's logo at the top and the building's name: _THE N GUCHI MEM RIAL AMPHITHEATER_.

Yeah, some of the characters were missing. Around this point, I lost all hope for the quality of the show, but I persevered for Maribel's sake.

A woman in a greasy-windowed little booth out front collected our payment and stamped our hands for admission, and we made our way inside. The interior was even worse. The seating was all benches, and even in the low light, I could see that the paint was chipped and worn. The projector screen at the back of the stage didn't hide the wall behind it, and the wall was covered in old peeling flyers and notices. The sound system let out a constant low buzz, giving me the feeling that I was trapped inside a giant bug zapper.

The lighting was good? I will say that. I feel like I shouldn't be too unkind, since presumably fellow Kyoto U students will be reading this in the future. It wasn't an objectively _bad_ building. It just wasn't somewhere I expected to see 'an occult sensation that had taken Japan by storm.'

It seemed like our fellow students were just as skeptical. When we walked in, there were about thirty of them scattered in the seats, looking at their phones and talking among themselves. At my insistence, Maribel and I chose seats close to the back, where we'd be able to slip out unnoticed if this turned out to be as horrible as I was expecting.

"It says here," Maribel said, as we settled in. She'd found a pamphlet somewhere along the way, and was reading through it. "That Professor Phantasmagoria's powers are psychokinesis, telepathy, and pyrokinesis—"

That was a slight mark in his favor, I supposed. He wasn't claiming to be able to communicate with the dead or predict the future, so he probably wasn't a complete scam artist. Then again, between the two of us, Maribel and I had paid fifty-two hundred yen to get in. Maybe he'd just decided that the traveling performer act was a less volatile con. Starting a cult never seemed like a stable career to me.

"He discovered them by accident when he was a teenager—"

Another plus. Most of the fakes I'd seen over the years were more of the 'developed his powers when he discovered a Crystal Skull' types.

"And he's working closely with the Chi Theta Psychic Research Institute."

"Ah." And my mind was made up. Half of the psychic scam artists I'd ever looked into had accreditation from the Chi Theta Psychic Research Institute. As far as I could tell, their primary criterion for determining whether somebody was a psychic was their willingness to part with seventy-five hundred yen for a 'testing' fee. "Does it say what he's a professor of?"

"I think the title is just for show."

"That's rude, Merry. He probably worked very hard for his doctorate in phantasmagoria." I will admit that I can be way too contrary when I'm annoyed.

Maribel gave me a light whack on the arm with the pamphlet. "Just _try_ to enjoy yourself, okay? Even if he's a fraud, he might still be an entertaining fraud, right?"

"Fine, fine. I still get to point out how all of his tricks work, though."

"If you can figure them out, deal."

A few more people trickled in, but even the modest auditorium was only about a third of the way filled. If I had believed that we were about to see anything except a blatant money grab playing on people's credulity, I might have even felt sorry for him.

After we'd been sitting for some time—it pains me to admit it, but since there weren't any windows, I couldn't say exactly how long—the audience lights dimmed. Unseen fog machines pumped mist out onto the stage from behind the curtains. It billowed out, lit into a multicolored display by spotlights overhead. On the screen at the back of the stage, massive words appeared: PROFESSOR PHANTASMAGORIA.

I could tell that this was going to be a real treat.

"Since the dawn of time," a voice boomed from the speaker system, "mankind has wondered about the mysteries of the universe and the true power of the human mind!"

"Since the dawn of time? I feel sorry for the people who were around before the planets formed," I whispered to Maribel. She shushed me.

"Tonight!" the voice shouted. "Everything you know will change, and the true nature of reality will be... laid... bare...!"

"That's a lot to cover in one sitting. I hope there will be a bathroom break."

"Renkoooo..." Maribel said, pleadingly.

"Fine, fine." I settled back and tried to focus on the performance. At that point, I actually did resolve not to mock things any further.

"All this and more will be revealed—!" the speakers boomed. The true nature of reality _and more_. This was shaping up to be a really busy night. "—and all by the indefatigable mental might of one man, Professooooooooor Phantasmagooooooriaaaa!"

Creaky, spooky music played, of the type that you might hear outside of a low-rent haunted house. The audience gave polite applause. Maribel clapped a bit harder than most, apparently just to spite me. Professor Phantasmagoria himself walked out onstage.

I'll give him this: His outfit was pretty good. His face was hidden by a clay-looking mask, with horizontal rectangular slits for eyes and abstracted features, like a haniwa. He wore a black robe with a deep hood, hiding everything from view except for his hands. The end result was to make him look like an alien creature, making it hard to gauge just what kind of person might be under there. Only the energy with which he moved gave his form any humanity.

"Ladies, gentlemen, those who are none of the above, and creatures of the mind," he said, sweeping his arms in a grand gesture that encompassed the room. "I stand before you tonight holding proof, absolute _proof_ , that the entire world that you know is but the most fleeting and ephemeral layer of reality. That your science—is wrong. That your religions—have lied to you."

I'd just like to say: I'm very proud of myself for managing to make it through this speech without wisecracking, or even rolling my eyes. Let that be noted. That's an official Sealing Club record now.

Professor Phantasmagoria continued. "I know that now, you disbelieve. You do not know the powers that I have unlocked! You, sir—" he pointed to a man in the audience, "—you think that I'm a fraud." The man laughed anxiously, but Phantasmagoria moved on before he could say anything in his defense. "You, ma'am, you're thinking of leaving already, even though your roommate has her boyfriend over tonight." The woman gave a scandalized squeal, and for the first time, Phantasmagoria briefly broke character. "I was right, right? Don't worry, after you tell her everything you saw tonight, she'll be the one jealous of _you_." Turning back to the crowd, he said, "Friends, psychic powers do exist, and for a select few like myself, we can perform miracles just... like... _that_."

With a snap of his fingers, a fireball exploded into the air, a few meters above the stage. Concussive pressure and heat washed across the auditorium, and a few shrieks of surprise rose from the audience. Maribel flinched so hard that she jolted in her seat, and I patted her hand, shooting her a reassuring smile. "Regular pyrotechnics," I said.

The room filled with applause, and Professor Phantasmagoria kept his hands raised, coaxing it onward. It slowly died down, and he lowered them. "So, for the skeptics, let's get right to work. How about psychokinesis? It's always a nice icebreaker. Could anybody volunteer a small object? Preferably something that won't break easily."

Throughout the audience, people started looking through their belongings. Maribel was no exception, digging through her purse in her lap. "If he levitated something of mine, that would help, right? We'd know he didn't arrange it ahead of time."

"It wouldn't hurt," I said.

Somebody else beat Maribel to the draw, though. Near the front of the audience, a girl stood up, holding a book. "Here!"

"Ah, very good," the Professor said. He stepped closer, and the girl leaned forward to offer it to him, but he raised a hand to stop her. "Please, throw it to me."

She said something I couldn't hear from across the room.

"Yes, I'm sure."

The girl pulled her hand back and gave the book an underhanded toss. He snatched it out of the air, and without hesitation, spun around and hurled it toward the audience. Cries of surprise rose up from the group, and a few people along its trajectory ducked. The book leveled off just above head height, though, and took off gliding through the air. It traced a wide, sweeping curve around the room, then flew up and along the back wall, flipping over, and it opened down the middle. Flapping its two halves like a bird, the book flew a circuit around the room.

Applause was already growing, and every eye in the room was glued to the book... except mine. I searched the air above it for a glint of wires. I looked at the Professor for any sign that he was controlling a device. He was standing calmly, though, with his arms folded in front of him. As the book made its way back to the stage, it did a loop-de-loop in the air, and he casually raised one hand to catch it.

"Ma'am," he said, offering it back to the original donor, "I believe this is yours."

The audience broke into more enthusiastic applause. I joined in this time, because at least he had a sense of showmanship about it. Clapping much more enthusiastically, Maribel smirked over to me.

"She could have been a plant, with a book that was already rigged for... however he might control it," I said. I already regretted not studying stage magic before this. In my head, I was doing the math to figure out how strong of a magnetic field he'd need to levitate a half-kilogram book, assuming it had the right materials placed in the spine. It wouldn't explain the flapping, but... "It could have been a hologram projected into the mist he released earlier. He prepared it ahead of time, knowing that somebody would offer a book, and tucked the real book away with sleight of hand before he mimed throwing it."

"Mmhm." Maribel's smile grew. She could see that I wasn't confident in the explanation.

The rest of the performance went similarly. Most of his following demonstrations, at least, were easier for me to explain away. He levitated a volunteer. ("Wires, or a hidden pedestal that's masked by an optical illusion," I said.) He launched a fireball from his fingertips that bounced up the aisle before exploding into sparks. ("Simple pyrotechnics.") He hauled out a small burner from the back room and coaxed the flames upward with his hands, shaping them into dragons and monsters. (" _Definitely_ a hologram.")

He called up a volunteer and read her mind, listing off every time she'd lied to her parents as a child, while she hid her face in embarrassment. This did not help my already-low opinion of Professor Phantasmagoria.

Every time he called for a volunteer, Maribel's hand shot up. So, I didn't think twice when she volunteered for the next trick.

"Now," he said, "let us delve deeper, to powers locked in the darkest corridors of the human mind. I will need one volunteer. A brave individual, who does not fear their faults being laid bare to—" Already, Maribel's hand was up. Hers was the only raised hand in the audience. "Ah, yes, you. Please, come down."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked Maribel, trying to keep my voice down. Half the audience was looking our way, after all.

"It will be fun! Besides, if it's me, you know I'm not just a plant in the audience, right?"

Maribel gave me one last reassuring smile, then slipped out of our aisle. As she made her way down to the stage, Phantasmagoria was already addressing her in that booming loudspeaker voice. "Tell me, young lady, what is your name?"

"Oh? Shouldn't a psychic be able to tell me?"

"Of course, my dear, but it's more beautiful if you say it." I was surprised to learn that I was capable of liking Professor Phantasmagoria less.

"Well, in that case..." Maribel made her way up the steps to the stage and dipped a shallow bow toward him. "I'm Maribel Hearn."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mar—Maribel." He stumbled over the name. We had that in common, at least. "Tell me, Maribel, do you believe in hypnosis? In mind control? In the ability to enforce one's desires on another's mind through will alone?"

"I'd say there's a decent case for it."

"Good, good. I would like to use you to demonstrate the principles. I will do nothing that will bring you to harm, but all of your secrets will be laid bare, and for a short time, you will be entirely under my will. Do you consent?"

If he was a fraud, he'd found one skeevy way to word things. If he wasn't a fraud, well, Maribel had some secrets that I thought were better kept out of the public eye. Like our trip into space, for example. I gripped the seat of my chair, and was debating whether to butt in and yank Maribel offstage, when she said, "I do."

I slumped back into my seat with a sigh.

"Good. Then please, close your eyes for me, Maribel. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Let my thoughts guide you."

She did so. I won't bother repeating the entire song-and-dance he put her through for induction. He asked her simple questions—how do you spell your name? How old are you?—to distract her. All the while, Maribel grew inattentive and distant, slumping down with glazed eyes. There was none of the standard hypnosis nonsense, no 'focus on my voice' or repetition. He merely stood behind her, completely unreadable behind his mask, while Maribel turned off like a deactivated robot.

"Tell me, Maribel," Phantasmagoria said after some time of this. "Do you know how to do a handstand?"

"No..."

"Why don't you try it anyway?"

Maribel didn't hesitate. She crouched down and leaned forward, placing her hands on the stage. A single thrust of her legs sent her sprawling forward, and she landed with a thud. A wave of laughter went through the audience.

Phantasmagoria turned toward the crowd, gesturing to Maribel with one hand. "The young miss Maribel is now entirely under my control. She will obey any command, give truthful answers to any questions. Observe. Maribel, please stand."

Maribel stood up, wordlessly.

"How old are you, Maribel?"

"Nineteen."

"Can you tell us your measurements?"

She did. More laughter from the audience.

"Are you seeing anybody?"

"Yes."

"Oh? What's the lucky fellow's name?"

"Renko."

Okay, yes, full disclosure: We were sort of dating at the time that this report started. I forgot to divulge that up front, I guess. I say 'sort of' because we'd never sat down and had a formal talk about being in a relationship or anything. It kind of... crept up on us.

I'm moving on from this topic now.

By this point, I was fuming. I didn't care if Phantasmagoria was a con artist or not. Either way, I couldn't tolerate anybody who pressured Maribel like that in front of a crowd. I rose from my seat and made my way along the edge of the room, moving toward the stage in case I needed to intervene.

"And now, we shall delve deeper into the mind," Phantasmagoria said. "Tell me, Maribel, what is your deepest secret?"

"I... see things."

"Oh? What kind of things?"

"I-I don't think I should..."

"It's okay, Maribel, you're among friends. You can tell us."

"Other worlds. Monsters." Even with her free will locked out, Maribel sounded very tiny as she admitted to that. Another round of laughter rose from the audience.

"What about fears? What are you afraid of, Maribel?"

"Um."

"You can tell us. Maribel, I want you to relax now. I want you to relax, and picture your deepest, darkest fear."

"Okay..."

Phantasmagoria paused for a few seconds. "Picture it... good, good. Do you see it?"

Maribel trembled, and even from a dozen meters away, I could see tears glistening in her eyes. "M-mmhm..."

"Shh. Now you're picturing your fear? I want you to drag it out. Pull that fear out, for all the world to see. Tell us all about it."

This was the point where I decided that things had gone far enough. "Hey!" I shouted, and every eye in the audience shifted toward me. "Stop it. Let her go."

"Miss, you're interrupting the show. This one last question, and she's free to go. Now, tell us, Maribel. What are you afraid..."

In a matter of seconds, several things happened:

Phantasmagoria trailed off uncertainly. He took a step back from Maribel, and his posture softened in confusion.

I stepped up onto the stage, now fully intending to rush in and pull Maribel away by force if need be.

Maribel whimpered again, scrunching down and drawing her arms tight around herself. "I-I don't..."

And Maribel became the center of what I can only call a distortion in the world. Jagged trails of darkness exploded out into the air around her, like stress lines running through glass. They distorted the light, making everything on the other side look warped and strange. A feeling of mounting tension spread through the room, like a great load had been placed on the universe itself and it was groaning under the weight.

Apart from a few gasps from the audience, everybody was still. I think that most of the crowd thought this was just another part of the act. The only ones who knew the truth were me and the Professor. Maribel was now almost entirely hidden by the thicket of dark cracks in the air, but even past that, I could hear her hyperventilating in terror.

Maribel let out a pained cry. The building trembled. The cracks spread, widening into dark voids in the air.

That tension released, and the entire universe groaned around us. Monsters poured from the cracks in the air.


	5. Chapter 2

I say monsters, but what they were—most of them, at least—was chimeras.

Chimeras of a very familiar sort.

Before I go any further, I'd just like to say: The full file on the chimeras is Entity File #5. If you'd like to read it, feel free, but one detail that it omits is that Maribel's the one who gave them their name. Scientifically speaking, a chimera is an organism that grows from two or more zygotes. Most chimeras are indistinguishable from their non-chimeric peers. So, the creatures that Maribel named 'chimeras' were nothing of the sort. They'd be more properly referred to as 'hybrids' or 'mutants.' Maribel still prefers the mythological allusion, but I've always thought the name was misleading. Real chimeras are marmosets and male tortoiseshell cats, not monsters.

Anyway. Needless to say, if the things that had come out of the cracks had been marmosets, this case file would be a lot shorter.

Chimeras—at least, the variety that popped out into the Noguchi Memorial Amphitheater that night—are a pretty diverse bunch. Each one is a few different species of animal mixed together, occasionally with a weird feature or two thrown on. The one that landed in front of me, for example, had a wolf's body, a grey-white thing with shaggy fur that flared up around the scruff of its neck. Its tail, though, was a scorpion's, segmented and arching up over its back, with a bulbous, pointed tip. Although it had a wolf's head, its mouth was larger than usual, and it had the fangs of a spider. (Chelicerae, if you want to be technical.)

This probably sounds pretty ridiculous. To be honest, it did look a bit ridiculous. Its tail was probably half as long as I am tall, though. The thing came up to chest level on me, and it was heavy enough that I could feel the vibration through the stage when it landed. I assure you, a creature like that won't let aesthetic concerns stop it from killing you.

And it wasn't alone. Although mostly obscured by the dark cracks running through the air, I could see that several others had arrived with it. More were already wriggling out to join them.

The audience finally realized that this wasn't all part of the show. Somewhere in the seating, somebody screamed. The panic spread through the crowd, and in a clamor of shouts and shuffling feet, people started scrambling out of their seats.

The noise drew the chimeras' attention. With a rattling hiss, the wolf-thing in front of me bounded off the stage and into the darkness below. A brown blur flapped off into the air with a menacing shriek. From somewhere on the other side of the cracks, a bone-rattling roar shook the room.

I was glued to the spot for a few seconds, watching this display in rapt terror. Then, I remembered how it had all started.

"Maribel!" With no other choice, I leapt into the forest of cracks. They split and branched out around chest level, so I had to crawl on the floor. Scrambling across the stage with unnatural darkness overhead, I prayed that none of the monsters would notice me. A taloned foot landed centimeters from my nose, and I went still until the creature launched itself into the air with a single flap of its leathery wings.

As I moved, I looked around, trying to find any sign of Maribel or the Professor. In that maze of cracks, with distortions around them, I could only see a meter or so ahead of myself. Beyond that, I could only hear the turmoil that was unfolding—something howled, followed by a series of screams. There was a loud crash, like something slamming into a door. Somebody shouted commands, but I couldn't understand them over the din. "Merry!" I shouted toward the center of the mess. "Merry, we need to get out of here!"

I heard no response, but soon, I caught a glimpse of a lavender dress through the mayhem. I pushed my way toward it, squirming on the floor to pass beneath a crack, and soon emerged next to Maribel.

She was at the exact center of the mess. The black cracks all led back to the same point, radiating outward from the air around Maribel's head like the branches of a tree. She was in exactly the same state as the last time I'd seen her. Whimpering and sobbing, she was curled up on the floor, with her face hidden behind her legs. Like somebody from an old Cold War-era nuclear awareness video, I thought, waiting for the first atom bomb to drop.

"Merry!" I pushed myself past the cracks until I entered the small void around her. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. She gave no indication that she noticed. "Merry! Merry, can you hear me? We need to get out of here, okay? Please, Merry, just stand up!"

I tried to guide Maribel to her feet, but every muscle in her body was tensed and locked up. She was light enough that I might have been able to drag her out of the room, but in the circumstances, she might as well have been nailed to the floor. One of the chimeras, passing out of the cracks, paused to look over us with beady reptilian eyes. I froze, terrified that it was going to strike. It slunk off, claws tapping out its footsteps on the stage.

I decided then and there that, no matter how awkward the retreat would be, we needed to get out of there. I grabbed Maribel under her armpits, yanking her upward. "Maribel! Please, Merry, we have to go!" I strained to lift her from the ground. I would carry her out, if that's what it took. "Merry!"

Something changed. If I had to guess, a combination of my interference and Professor Phantasmagoria's apparent retreat had snapped her out of her hypnotic state. Maribel's whole body jolted in shock, but her muscles relaxed, and her legs unfolded toward the floor.

A constant low thrumming noise that I hadn't even been aware of faded. In a rush of deafening silence, the cracks in the air collapsed in on themselves, imploding into nothingness. I could once again see the rest of the room, and it wasn't good. Every door out of the auditorium was open, and the emergency exits had all been tripped, leaving them bleating out evacuation alarms. People's belongings were scattered across the seating area, left behind in the rush to leave. Almost the entire audience had escaped out the doors, and it looked like most of the chimeras had chased after them. Half a dozen of the things remained in the room, and they'd been whipped into a frenzy by all of the excitement. A rhinoceros-thing lumbered up the aisle with the speed and implacability of a freight truck, smashing aside the benches in its wake. A bat-like creature with the head of a barracuda had landed on one of the speakers overhead, and was viciously jabbing its mouth into it, ripping out wires and chunks of mechanism and flinging them aside.

"Renko...?" Maribel said. Her eyes were puffy and red, she looked dazed, and she was trembling in my arms, but at least she was conscious. It was a start. "What happened?"

"Monsters. The things from TORIFUNE. Um." I looked for our best escape route. From this angle, I could see the door to the backstage area. It was the only one that was closed, and more importantly, it was the one with the least chimeras between it and us. Only a single creature was still onstage, but it was near the back wall, a few meters away. It was like a great centipede, as big around as a man's waist, with a snake's head. Its dozens of feet drummed out a humming rhythm on the floor as it made its way along the wall, paying us no attention. "I'll explain later," I said, and relaxed my grip on Maribel. "Can you walk?"

The scene going on throughout the room had finally registered with her, and Maribel was watching it in wide-eyed shock. My words barely seemed to reach her. "I-I, um." She forced herself to look away and meet my gaze. "I think so, yes."

"Good. Let's head out this way, and... try to move slowly," I said, already guiding her toward the door. "I think most of them think you're prey if you run."

Maribel nodded, and we crept across the stage. I could see that she was holding herself back, longing to dash toward safety. She kept glancing fearful glances toward the auditorium behind us and flinching at every roar or scream from beyond it, while I tried my best not to think about it. The shortest path took us through the curtain, and I pushed it aside as slowly and steadily as I could. The chimeras in the audience seemed entirely unaware of our presence.

The one along the back wall was the exception. It turned its head at the sound of our footsteps. It arced its meters-long body upward, and its reptilian eyes settled on us. I froze, motioning Maribel to do so too. She did. The chimera, too, stayed in place, its upper body swaying in the air as it waited for us to make a move. We waited. It waited.

On some unspoken signal, Maribel and I both took off at a dash. I reached the door first and yanked it open, waving Maribel through. As she sped through it, the chimera struck. I scrambled back behind the door, and fangs as long as my forearm raked through the air where my body had been been a split second earlier.

"Renko!" Maribel shouted from the other side of the doorway.

"Merry, go! I'll find another way out!"

I shifted back, shielding myself from the thing behind the door. It was metal, painted red, and looked like it had been repainted every few years without ever having the previous coats stripped off. What had once been chips of missing paint had, over successive coats, turned into pits in its gummy surface. A bent-edged paper, held on with dirty tape, reminded people to 'PLEASE CLOSE DOOR WHILE PERFORMANCES ARE UNDERWAY.'

I say this only because I noticed it at the time. Here I was, facing down an impossible monster that had popped out of a crack in the universe, and my brain still registered details like that. Even at the time, I realized how ridiculous it was. I was probably going to die here, and my last thoughts were going to be, _they should really just get a new door._

The chimera leaned in. It butted its head against the door, giving it a probing shove. This pushed it back against me, and the hinges creaked as they stopped it from crushing me against the wall. Nearly flattened against the bricks, I glanced to the side. The only avenue of escape was toward the rear corner of the room. If I took off fast enough, I might be able to reach the wall and make it to the nearest audience exit before the chimera caught up with me. It didn't seem very quick on its feet. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to make a break for it...

And a wave of fire washed out the doorway and over the chimera. The thing let out a hiss of pain and stumbled backward, and in that instant of distraction, Maribel lunged out and grabbed my hand. "Come on!"

She yanked me around the door and into the room, and I soon saw the strange circumstances of my rescue. Professor Phantasmagoria himself was standing there, glaring at the doorway and with his hands raised dramatically as he prepared another attack. Now that he was stripped of the mask, I could see that he was barely in his thirties, with bushy eyebrows, a hairline that was rapidly receding at the temples, and slicked down hair. I instantly realized why he wore the mask. Without it, he looked more like a small-time politician than a fount of psychic power.

The chimera lunged toward the door, and Phantasmagoria gestured forward, blasting it with fire. When it stumbled back, Maribel leapt forward to pull the door shut. We all stood in silence, with Maribel and I struggling to catch our breath from the exertion. On the other side, we could hear the drumming of the chimera's feet as it rushed toward us. It butted its head against the door, and the door rattled in its frame. Maribel flinched. It went through this a few times, giving the door several probing shoves, until it apparently gave up hope of getting it to open. Defeated, it slunk off.

Only then did I dare to exhale. My pulse was still pounding in my ears. Ever since things had started, I hadn't had time to think about anything but escaping. Only now that I was looking back on them did I realize just how many questions the events of the past few minutes had raised.

"Are you okay?" Maribel asked, looking over me.

"I'm fine. That thing's just lucky I didn't give it a black eye," I said, unconvincingly. Maribel was bedraggled, but she looked like she was in one piece. Which only left...

"What in the world _are_ those things?!" Professor Phantasmagoria demanded.

In my adrenaline rush, two hours of annoyance at him found their outlet. "Why don't you tell me?! It looked to me like you're the one who made them!"

The Professor froze in shock, and an outraged flush spread on his cheeks. "Me?! I had nothing to do with it! Your friend over there—"

"And why didn't you stop when she started crying?! What kind of show is this?!"

"People often get emotional when their mental defenses are lowered! And your friend—" he jabbed a finger toward Maribel, "—is the root of all of this. She had those, those _things_ in her head. In her memories. I saw them. So whatever they are, she's the one who brought them here!"

"And who's the one who forced her to think about stuff until she broke down in front of an entire audi—"

"Renko. I think he's right." Maribel didn't raise her voice, but she still stopped me in my tracks. She sounded tired.

I hadn't realized until she interrupted me that I'd been advancing on Phantasmagoria, and my hand was already balled into a fist. "What do you mean?"

"At least, kind of. I could, um, feel them come out of me. He made me so scared, and it was like I was in the worst place in the world. Every bad thing I could think of just..." Her voice cracked, and she trailed off. I could see that she was holding herself back from crying again. "And then... there they were."

Maribel went quiet, and anger rose in my throat. "That's some act you have there."

To his credit, Phantasmagoria did look guilty. "Spiders," he mumbled. "Most girls just talk about being afraid of spiders. A-anyway." He drew himself back up to his full, not-very-impressive height and steadied his voice. "Right now, the important question isn't where they came from, it's how we're going to get out of here."

"And stop them," I said.

"Right." He did not sound enthusiastic about the idea. "There's a rear entrance for performers and cast, but..."

He trailed off, but my subconscious filled in the rest of the sentence: _but we don't know what's out there_. In the distance, we could still hear occasional shouts and atavistic shrieks, muffled by a few layers of walls. Those things had escaped, and there were probably some outside right now. The safest thing to do might be to lay low, but I wasn't even sure about that. I wondered if anybody had called the police. I wondered further if the police would be much use in this sort of situation. I somehow doubted that they were trained on controlling outbreaks of giant mutant animals. If the ones outside were attacking people, it could be hours before any help reached us. It was probably best to assume that we were on our own.

I looked around. The backstage area was, like the rest of the theater, a bit run down. The walls were bare brick, and had accumulated layer after layer of flyers, announcements, schedules, warnings, and set lists over the years. A single screen on the wall displayed a live video of the now-empty stage. Judging by a few discarded items, whatever staff had been back here had already fled. A few flimsy-looking wooden doors along the back wall led to what I guessed were dressing rooms. Around the edges of the room laid old audio equipment, lights, curtains, rope, and occasional discarded prop. It all looked like handy stuff for the theater business, but none of it looked like it would make much of a weapon.

"Do you have transportation?" I said, looking to Phantasmagoria.

"I have a car, but it's a rental."

"Where is it?"

"There's a lot at the end of the alley. It's only about twenty meters away."

"Right." Twenty meters, and hopefully there was nothing in the alley that would cause the chimeras to congregate there. It didn't sound too difficult. "We grab whatever we can find for weapons and peek outside. If it's clear, we head to your car and get out of here."

"We can't just take theater equipment!"

"I think," I said, "that an invasion of space monsters probably counts as exceptional circumstances."

He gave no further argument, and we began searching. The pickings were almost as bad as I'd feared. All of the equipment was too big or too unwieldy to use as weapons. I found a few costume pieces, but none of them would give us any real protection.

As I was considering whether I might be able to construct a weapon out of anything on-hand, Maribel found that one of the doors along the back wall was, in fact, a closet. Soon, we were armed: me, with a spear made by taping a utility knife to a broom handle, and Maribel with a claw hammer. Professor Phantasmagoria didn't take anything for himself, but since he doubled as a human flamethrower, I didn't complain.

We made our way to the back door, and the Professor cracked it open to peek out. "I don't see anything."

"Lead the way," I said. "If we run into any, getting to the car is our first priority. Don't fight them if you can avoid it."

He wisely decided not to argue. After one last cautious glance, he pushed the door open, and we hurried outside.

The alley was narrow, and empty apart from a trash can and a few shipping pallets next to the door. Looking down it in both directions, I couldn't see any sign of the chimeras. It was 8:14 PM (and fifty-two seconds) and the sky was only just beginning to dim as the sun approached the horizon. If I hadn't witnessed the bizarre events in the theater, it would have seemed like a normal, safe summer evening.

We crept down the alley, with Phantasmagoria in the lead and me holding up the back, my makeshift spear pointed threateningly at the air behind us. The far end of the alley, back the way we came, opened up to a road. The occasional passing car assured me that the entire universe hadn't ground to a halt after the incident in the theater.

I would like to say that we had a dramatic confrontation with a chimera on the way to the car, and that Maribel and I valiantly defeated it while Phantasmagoria stared on in awe. There was nothing so dramatic as that, though. We walked quickly but steadily, with the occasional scream or roar assuring us that elsewhere, other people were having a much worse experience than we were. It was almost more nerve-wracking than if something had actually attacked us.

The parking lot was small and weedy, and so was Phantasmagoria's rental car. It was an old, unloved-looking thing, barely more than a box with wheels and just enough room for four people inside. We dropped our weapons and piled in. The inside smelled like sweat and upholstery that had been in the sun for too long. Maribel in the front, me in the back, and Phantasmagoria in the driver seat, we looked out the windows at a world that suddenly seemed far stranger than it had merely an hour earlier.

Maribel was the first to speak. "So, um," she said. "What now?"

"I don't know," Phantasmagoria said. "I really don't."

"We need to figure out how those things got here," I said. "We need to stop them before anybody else gets hurt."

"Stop them?" Phantasmagoria leaned back and met my eyes through the gap between the seats. "Nobody's even told me what they _are_ yet!"

"Mister Phantasmagoria—" Maribel started.

"It's Ishimori," he groaned. "Yuuta Ishimori." (I will be primarily referring to him as 'Yuuta' for the rest of the case file, because I'm getting really tired of the word 'phantasmagoria.')

" _Mister Ishimori_ , then." How Maribel maintained such a diplomatic tone, I will never know. Her eyes were still puffy from crying, and she looked like she was going to collapse for a twelve-hour nap as soon as we were away from here. "It would be pretty rude of us to dump a bunch of monsters into a crowd and leave them running loose. You might not know this, but Renko and I are paranormal investigators. We probably have a code against that sort of thing."

"You two. Paranormal investigators. Really."

"We've been to the Netherworld and visited space," I said. "I'd say that's more than most people manage."

I had expected him to argue, but he accepted it. Maybe he could read the truth from our minds. Maybe nothing seemed too unbelievable after watching a bunch of monsters bust out of somebody's head in the middle of a performance. "Then in your _professional_ opinion, what should we do now?"

"We should get away from here first," I said. "As scattered as they are, there's nothing we can do right now, especially when we're all tired and unprepared. Somebody's probably called the police, and they have a better chance of dealing with these things than we do." I didn't think it was a very good chance at all, but I also wasn't about to try herding all those things up with my knife-spear.

"That's the first reasonable thing I've heard you say."

Yuuta recited an address to the car, and it backed out onto the street. The natural shortest path took us around the front of the theater, so we got to see all of the carnage up close. In front, two men, presumably audience members, were sitting on the sidewalk. One was tending to a long gash on the other's leg. Across the street, a small group was standing around, half of them on their phones, a few crying.

The chimeras were nowhere to be seen, but the signs were around. There were a few streaks of blood on the sidewalks around the theater, and in places, chunks of asphalt had been ripped up by claws, hooves, and talons. Whether the things had been chasing the fleeing audience members or following some urge to get out of the enclosed space, they were gone now.

The interior of the car was as silent as a funeral as we passed this scene. In retrospect, maybe we should have stopped. We could have gathered clues, or helped some of the wounded. At the time, though, all I could think was, _I'm sure glad we're leaving this behind._

The car hummed along in silence. Soon, we were out of sight of the theater, and back to the normalcy of the rest of the city.

"This is going to ruin my schedule," Yuuta said. He was slumped over the steering wheel and ignoring the road, leaving the car entirely to its own devices. "I was supposed to do two more shows in that theater."

"People just—people might have _died_ back there, and you're worried about your schedule?!"

"When you can read minds, you realize that most people are always worried about themselves, no matter what is happening around them. I'm just up-front about it."

We lapsed back into silence, and Maribel took it upon herself to mend this situation. "So, Mister Ishimori," she said, after clearing her throat. "Renko's grandmother was a psychic, too."

"Was she."

"She was. Psychokinesis, astral projection, and, um... what else, Renko?"

I really wasn't in a mood to talk, but I couldn't bring myself to ignore Maribel. "A little mind-reading. She swore she could teleport, but I never saw her do it."

"Is that so." Yuuta did not sound interested.

Silence again. We were all, I think, dealing with what had just happened in our own way. Me by considering how we could fix it, Yuuta by worrying about what few things he could control, and Maribel... Maribel, I'm not actually sure about. She simply looked out the window, watching the scenery. I could tell she was still worried, and guilty over her possible role in what had happened. At the same time, she seemed calmer than she had over the past several months. More resolute, maybe.

I suppose that when your every waking moment is filled with visions of monsters and other worlds, it can be reassuring to be reminded that monsters really exist.


	6. Chapter 3

It was a long and unproductive night. After begrudgingly exchanging contact information, Yuuta dropped us off back at my apartment a bit after 8:30. Maribel and I were too full of adrenaline to sleep, yet too tired to do anything productive. We tried to put together some plans for dealing with the situation, but we still didn't know much about our adversaries. We didn't have much evidence about where they'd come from, and the memory was still an open wound for Maribel, best probed sparingly and with great caution.

Mostly we sat, and worried, and fretted. I tended to Maribel, who swore she was okay. After a few unproductive hours, we gave up and went to bed in the early morning.

I don't think either of us managed to sleep for an instant, but what else were we going to do?

* * *

"So, according to the news..." Maribel said, over breakfast the next day. We'd both gotten out of bed in the mid-morning, and gone through our normal routines almost without talking. Like we were each afraid to be the one to remind the other about the whole 'mutant space monsters appearing out of the air and attacking us' incident. Now, peering at her phone as she waited for her tea to cool, Maribel was finally breaking the impasse. "According to the news, there were twelve people injured and, um, three missing."

"Hmm." It was more than I would have liked, less than I'd feared. "How are they spinning the story?"

"It's 'still under investigation,'" Maribel said, and gave her tea an appraising sip. "Doesn't that mean 'we have no idea' in police terms?"

"That's pretty cynical of you, Merry."

"Well, how about this?" Maribel glanced back to it, and recited, "'The investigation has determined that the injuries were the result of several dozen large creatures, which police contacts have dubbed 'chimeras.' Investigators were not forthcoming with their plans to capture the beasts...'" I made a grab for Maribel's phone now, and she rocked back to keep it away from me. "'... but eyewitnesses report a large number of animal control officers being brought in from other precincts and given training on anti-materiel rifles.' My, Renko, isn't it a strange world that we live in?"

"Does it actually _say_ any of that?"

"Hmm? No, of course not." She smirked, proud to have kept me guessing. "But that's my point. Even if all of the clues pointed to the chimeras, it's not like the police could come out and say that. They'd have to find an explanation the public will accept."

"I suppose the world isn't ready to hear about outbreaks of giant monsters."

"Mmhm." Maribel flicked through a few more articles as she nursed her tea. "It sounds like they're going to say that it was just an illusion gone wrong. It was too realistic, mass hysteria resulted, and a few people got hurt in the resulting stampede. That seems like the most likely outcome, doesn't it?"

"Probably."

"Oh! There's a video of the incident!"

"There is?" I was already out of my seat by the time the words left my mouth. Sliding around the table, I leaned in over Maribel's shoulder.

"Mmhm. Somebody linked it in the comments."

She hit play, and the video started. The viewpoint was from somewhere on the left side of the audience, about eight rows from the stage. It was a pretty good view, only hampered by the fact that the person taking it was keeping their phone held low to avoid attracting attention. It was obviously cut out of a longer recording, since it picked up mid-sentence.

"—it, let her go!" It was me. I was barely visible off to the side of the screen.

"Miss, you're interrupting the show. This one last question, and she's free to go. Now, tell us, Maribel. What are you afraid..."

The moment, which had seemed so dramatic and tense at the time, looked almost comical from the camera's distant viewpoint. Phantasmagoria took an uncertain step away from Maribel. Maribel slumped to the floor, and I hurried forward. Maribel said something, but it wasn't even audible from the camera's point.

From this angle, I could see that the cracks in the air had very much emanated from Maribel. They lashed out from her, forking like lightning. From a distance, they almost looked like a giant bush. A few gasps of surprise came from the crowd, and for a full second or two, everything was still.

The flow of the chimeras from the cracks had been hard to perceive when I was running through them, but from this distance, it was obvious. Three of them fell from the air and strode out onto the stage, looking around in confusion, and anxious murmurs ran through the crowd. Toward the edge of the screen, a flash of moving darkness caught my eye. "Wait," I said. "Pause it and zoom in."

"Hmm? Sure." Maribel did so, and after a little hunting, we found the spot again.

The blur of motion was a creature. It looked like a spider at first glance, so I almost wrote it off as a chimera. While the chimeras seemed to be made out of mixed and jumbled parts of earthly animals, though, this looked like no spider I had ever seen. Its legs were thick, plated with armor or something, and the joints jutted out at such sharp angles that they looked like they could impale somebody. It probably would have come up to chest height on me. And, perhaps most strangely, even though it was directly under the spotlights, it showed no hint of color. The thing was as black as night.

"I think," I said, "that we need to go over this very thoroughly."

* * *

We hooked Maribel's phone up to the television, and spent an hour going over every second of the footage.

This is what we found:

It was impossible to get a solid count of the chimeras, since whoever had been doing the filming had wisely started evacuating about ten seconds into the invasion. Based on the rate they were coming through the cracks and the time that the cracks were open, I estimated that there could be anywhere between twenty-five and fifty of them.

The spider-thing I'd seen only showed up for a few seconds of film. Unlike the chimeras, when it appeared, it showed no hesitation. It took off toward the nearest person, a fleeing audience member from the front row, and leapt at them with impossible speed. The camera jerked away shortly after, and the person's fate wasn't shown. With what I know now, I suspect that was one of the missing people, and I doubt they survived. During our conversation, we found ourselves referring to this creature as the Dark Thing, and the name stuck.

Maribel was the one to spot the second anomaly. The air above the stage distorted, and something flowed out away from the cracks. It was hard to get a good view of what it actually _was_. There were a series of dark surfaces that flickered in and out of view, tracing out the shape of some larger whole. This strange, conditionally-visible creature made its way to the screen behind the stage, and a black spot spread onscreen in front of it. It sank its way in, and the spot shrank down to nothing. For the instant that we could had a clear view of the spot, we could see that it was dotted with shapes that could only be eyes.

We spent a few minutes arguing over whether this could possible be a malfunction of the projector, but it would have been one hell of a coincidence if so. We provisionally added it to the list of creatures for now, and moved on.

After another ten minutes of scanning the footage, we could find nothing else that seemed noteworthy, but the revelation that there had been even stranger things than chimeras was a frightening one. Dozens of chimeras, one monstrous-looking creature, and one complete unknown. We decided to call Yuuta to figure out what our next move should be.

* * *

This was a Friday, remember. I had a lab due to start at 1 PM, and I didn't even remember it until 3 PM. It was the first time I had missed class, and the lab work was worth 60% of my grade. I messaged the TA and explained that I'd been injured in the events at the theater. It was close enough to the truth for me to tell myself that it was, on some level, not entirely a lie. He hadn't even heard of the previous night's events, but he accepted it and arranged a time for me to make up the lab on Monday.

Yuuta wasn't pleased to hear from me, but he was still in town, and he agreed to meet us at the theater to look for clues about what had happened. I'm pretty sure he only went along with it because he'd left some stuff behind in the dressing room.

We'd met up in the parking lot behind the place, the same one we'd evacuated from the night before. The theater showed the signs of having been tended to in the interim—stacks of ripped-up benches had been heaped outside the back door—but it thankfully didn't have a police line around it or anything. I realized then that Maribel was right—the authorities weren't going to give this the investigation it deserved. They'd probably look for the missing people, sure, but the rest would be written off as fallout from the 'stampede.'

But I suppose there wouldn't be any need for paranormal investigators if the police could handle cases like this, would there?

Yuuta was waiting outside when we arrived. He was, thankfully, not dressed in that weird cultist robe he'd had on during the performance, but a polo shirt and khakis. It made him look more like a used car salesman than a psychic. He barely waited until we were in speaking range to announce, "I'm being investigated now, you know."

"Are you?"

He clearly hadn't needed the encouragement to keep going. He had the expression of a man who'd prepared a long rant ahead of time, and wasn't going to be deterred. "They think my whole act is holograms and optical illusions, and that I, I slipped drugs or something to the audience to make them more susceptible! I read an officer's mind and saw that they'd already conducted drug tests on some of the victims when they were admitted to a hospital. Nothing, of course. They let me be once I pointed that out, but if I hadn't been a psychic, I would have been a goner."

"If you hadn't been a psychic, none of this would have happened in the first place," I pointed out.

He scowled at me, and decided to try a different approach. "Miss Hearn," he said, and turned to address Maribel. "Since your _friend_ —"

"Her name is Renko," Maribel helpfully supplied.

"—yes, _Renko_ , is intent on persecuting me for some reason, I'll just talk to you. Could you be so kind as to tell me what I'm doing standing here behind this godforsaken theater while the police are investigating me and my career is going up in flames?"

"We thought we should compare notes, and this seems like as good a place as any. Plus, we thought we might be able to find some clues if we snuck inside. It sounds like getting to the bottom of this would help you a lot too, right?"

" _Thank_ you. It's truly a blessing to find that you are as reasonable as you are lovely."

I rolled my eyes, but kept my protests to myself for now. If Yuuta really wanted to flirt with a lesbian, I was content to let him bang his head against that wall as long as he wasn't making Maribel uncomfortable. We headed up the alley to the back door of the theater, and paused to make sure we couldn't hear anything moving inside. It made me briefly wish that I'd brought a weapon. Our improvised ones from the previous night, I noticed, had been moved from the parking lot. At this point, though, I was more worried about being discovered trespassing in a crime scene than I was about encountering one of the chimeras here.

Which brought up another question. "There's something that's been bugging me," I said, as we slipped through the door into the backstage area. It was just as we'd left it the night before. "We figured out that there had to have been at least thirty or so of those things, right?"

"Right..." Maribel said.

"Then where _are_ they? Even if they weren't attacking people, I'd think that creatures that big would be kind of obvious."

"They might have run into the wilderness," Yuuta said.

"Obviously they got bored and went back home to space," Maribel said.

Yuuta spent a few minutes retrieving his forgotten belonging from the back room—his mask, mostly, which he slung around his neck by its cord, and a few odds and ends from the desk—and we made our way out into the theater. It was a strange mix of chaos and order, with the damaged chairs stripped out, but a few pieces of detritus remained. The stage looked just as it had the night before, and only now did I notice that it bore heavy scratch marks from dozens of claws and talons.

Nothing that we didn't already know, though. I'd kind of already known that the creatures had big claws.

"How about this," I said, and walked over to the center of the stage. "Why don't you two stand right where you were, and we'll walk through the incident, start to finish?"

"Oh! Yes, that sounds like a good idea," Maribel said. She took up position in the center of the scratched-up area of the stage. Yuuta grudgingly followed.

"So, first of all," I said. "What did you even do to Maribel to make her like that?"

Yuuta sighed and crossed his arms, looking out over the audience area. "I've never actually met another legitimate psychic, so all the terms I might use are ones that I've made up myself."

"Do the best you can, then."

"Then we'll call it mind control, for lack of a better term. I dampened her consciousness and lowered her inhibitions. It makes people more open to suggestion, and makes it easier for me to read their memories."

"Like hypnosis."

"Yes, but real."

"So you lowered Maribel's guard enough for her to make a fool of herself and tell a bunch of secrets onstage. Then, you started asking what she is afraid of..."

"... which is _usually_ a nice crowd-pleaser. Most people's fears are fairly mundane. Spiders, or heights, or the time a dog bit them when they were eight."

"You never get more serious fears?" Maribel said. "People who are afraid of their spouse leaving them, or anything like that?"

"Sometimes, I suppose. When I call for a volunteer, I _do_ ask for somebody brave and who doesn't mind baring their fears. The show is 18+, anyway. Everybody involved is an adult and able to legally consent." There was a touch of defensiveness to Yuuta's tone.

I sighed, but this really didn't seem like a good time to debate the morality of mind control. I dropped the subject. "So you did all of that, and then... Merry, do you remember what you were thinking about, when he asked for your fears?"

"I was scared," she said. "It was like... like everything I was afraid of was happening at once. The monsters on TORIFUNE, and being chased by youkai, and... and other stuff."

"Other stuff?"

"Just silly things. Don't worry about it."

Her voice wasn't convincing, but I didn't want to press the issue. "And then... the monsters appeared." I looked down at the scuffed-up floor, like I expected to find some answers in the claw marks. "What happened?"

They both stayed silent for a few seconds, until Yuuta volunteered, "I saw them in her thoughts. Right before they appeared, she was thinking about them."

"Right, I remember. You backed away from her, like you'd seen something that made _you_ scared."

"That wasn't all, though. There was a doctor's office or something. And running through a forest..." He frowned thoughtfully. "There were more vague ones, too. Hard for me to read."

Maribel's gaze was fixated on the floor. She looked anxious, but she wasn't denying any of it. "That still doesn't explain where the monsters came from," I said.

"I feel like..." Maribel said, and looked up. "When he told me to tell him about them. I was having trouble finding the right words. Nobody really believes me when I talk about this stuff, you know? And I... really didn't want to admit to all of that onstage and have people laugh at me."

"So, what happened?"

"I still... I couldn't _not_ tell people about them. What with the mind control and all. I think I might have... done something with my boundary powers. It kind of felt like I brought them here or something, so that everybody could see them."

"You brought them all the way from TORIFUNE?" As soon as I said it, I realized it was a faulty hypothesis. Maribel's powers had been growing quickly over the past few months, but she still needed a boundary to work with if she was trying to bridge two areas. We'd only gotten to TORIFUNE in the first place by traveling to its shrine to Ame-no-Torifune from an earthly one. I really doubted that TORIFUNE had any amphitheaters on it. It also wouldn't explain the other monsters.

"More like I... pulled them out of my head. I was so scared, and they felt like they were right there, a-and..." I only realized now that Maribel had tears brimming in her eyes. "I-I don't know how? Something with my powers. It was reflexive, or subconscious... It just happened, and they were everywhere, and all those people got hurt... I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I stepped closer, and pulled Maribel into a hug. She didn't break down sobbing, but she was close. Yuuta had the good sense to look away, which was good, because I had a strong urge to punch him in the face for what he'd done to Maribel.

I considered everything we had reviewed. If Maribel had truly brought those creatures here with her powers... what, then? Had she somehow summoned the chimeras from somewhere? Were they figments of her imagination made flesh? It left a lot of questions, but gave us somewhere to start, at least. And, with Maribel's current state, I didn't think it would be very productive to continue that avenue of questioning right now. "Let's look around," I said softly. "Maybe we can find something."

We didn't find much. I showed the video of the performance to Yuuta, and he confirmed that neither of the strange phenomena—the Dark Thing and the mysterious half-visible thing that had disappeared into a dark hole full of eyes—were anything he'd ever seen before. We got the projector to turn on, and confirmed that the patch of eyes wasn't something it was prone to displaying. We looked at the pile of damaged benches, hoping that we might find some blood or fur from the chimeras on it, but they were spotless.

I remembered the man who had run offscreen in the video, pursued by the Dark Thing, and did my best to retrace his steps. There was a door just out of the camera's field of vision, and it was the one that had gotten the most damage from the previous night's events. The door was metal, but the side facing toward the interior had several long dents in it, where the paint had been chipped off as well. In one spot, whatever had impacted it had penetrated into it, revealing a grey foam core. The hole itself was about four centimeters in diameter. The metal was about a centimeter thick, and looked like steel. Whatever had punched the hole in it had been strong, and it hadn't even left behind any blood or fur to suggest that doing so had hurt it.

I shuddered at the thought of being chased by such a monster. Little did I know that I would be in that exact situation before the end of the day.

* * *

Our investigation of the theater took a few hours. A decent amount of that was just sitting and thinking, and me trying to reassure Maribel that none of this had been her fault. By the time we gave up for the day, it was getting dark outside. I immediately regretted choosing to walk. Knowing that dozens of chimeras were loose in the city made my imagination stick lurking monsters in every alley, and every distant noise became some creature's hunting roar.

Before I continue, I should describe my living situation. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, on the second floor of a two-story building. The building has three similar apartments in it. It's fairly big by Kyoto standards, which means that it would be considered ridiculously expensive most other places. My parents, thankfully, did a lot to help me through college.

My building is in between two similar buildings, with one on each side.

All set? Good.

Maribel and I were quiet for most of the walk back. I think that she was still coping with the idea that she'd had a direct hand in unleashing the chimeras, and I stayed quiet to give her some time to think. We were tired, too. Neither of us had slept well the night before, after all, and then we'd spent most of the day deep in thought and walked a few kilometers. I, for one, wanted nothing more than to collapse in bed as soon as I was home.

Neither of us were in our most attentive state, is what I'm getting at here.

Something behind us still caught Maribel's attention. As we approached my apartment, her gaze drifted back over her shoulder. Between the way she tensed up and her terrified expression, I already sensed that something was wrong before she said, "Um, Renko...!"

I looked back over my shoulder. This was probably our mistake. We should have just taken off running then and there. I think, though, that it could have killed us right then if it had really wanted to. It didn't. It _wanted_ to be seen, I now know.

Behind us, the long shadow of a building was moving. And I don't mean that something was moving _in_ the shadow, but that the shadow itself was creeping across the wall. It split apart and grew darker. A sharp-edged leg poked out. It became a silhouette of pure darkness, which stepped away from the rest of the shadow into its own form.

The Dark Thing, the spider monster we had seen in the video, had arrived.

Seeing it from a few meters away, I immediately understood how little perspective the video had given me on its true size. It did, indeed, come up to chest height on me. But, I feel like it's important to point out: It came up to chest height on me despite being shaped like a spider. Its legs would have been two or three meters long if unfolded, and even though they bent at sharp angles in the middle, it was still wider than I was tall.

Each leg was as thick as my waist near the base, and tapered down to a needle-sharp point at the end. Each segment of its legs had an armored plate facing outward, and they rose up past the joint, ending in points of their own. My first impression of the thing was that it was like a pile of knives, as many sharp edges as possible.

I wasn't wrong, but there was more to it than that.

Its surface, I now know, was covered in centimeter-long bristles, each one stiff enough to cut flesh. Its center was a vaguely-defined orb, little more than the point where its legs joined. It didn't need a mouth, or eyes, or any of those complications that we organic lifeforms worry about. It was a monster, a creature purely of violence and fear.

Most of all, and probably related to the way it had stepped out of the shadows: it was, well, dark. That doesn't really do it justice, though. It was like the embodiment of pure shadow, like a black hole cut in the universe. Even viewed from close up, it was hard to see it as a three-dimensional object. My eyes seemed to slide over it, treating it like a void, a flat emptiness entirely devoid of any sense of depth.

"Run!"

In retrospect, I don't even remember which one of us shouted it. As soon as we moved, the Dark Thing moved too.

I took off at a full sprint toward the stairs to my apartment, and it kept pace with me. I could hear it traveling in great leaps, dislodging pebble-sized chunks of pavement when it launched itself into the air. Maribel reached the stairs a second before the thing crashed into the staircase just below her. The tips of its legs smashed through the lowest step, and Maribel scrambled up the stairs away from it.

"Merry, get inside!" I shouted, as I backed away from it. Looking back, I don't really know what I'd intended there. If I wanted to pass myself off as a hero here, I could say that I intended to be a decoy so that Maribel could escape. I think, though, that the thought of seeing that thing reach her frightened me enough that I didn't even think about the risk to myself.

I backed away from the thing. It hesitated for just a second, torn between two equally helpless, equally frightened prey.

It chose me.

In a single shuffling bound, the thing closed the gap between us. It's hard to express how terrifying that was. Again, this thing was over a meter tall and meters wide. Like a small car had just hurled itself in my direction, and landed with enough force to gouge furrows in the sidewalk.

It carried that momentum forward and raked two forelimbs in my direction. I stumbled backward, just in time for them to smash holes in the pavement instead of my body. I turned and ran, driven entirely by adrenaline and instinct. It followed.

"Where are you going?!" Maribel shouted, somewhere in the distance. It was a good question. The nearest path of—temporary—escape was the mouth of the alley, and I'd scrambled into it without thinking. I didn't even put together an answer to her question before the creature landed from another pounce, making the turn into the alley by smashing into the wall and ricocheting off. Dislodged chunks of brick crumbled to the ground in the aftermath.

My frantic footsteps echoed down the alley. The recycling service wasn't due to come by for a while, and as always, my neighbors had used it as temporary storage space in the meantime. A few bicycles were parked halfway in, and I shoved them over as I passed. The Dark Thing seemed to view this movement as prey, and it leapt on the bicycles, filling the air with tortured metallic sounds as it stomped and ripped them to pieces. (On the off-chance that one of my neighbors reads this—I'm very sorry about your bike, but I hope you'll see why it was necessary.)

The distraction let me put some distance between me and it, but my escape had bigger issues. At the end of the alley stood our recycling bins, blocking most of the alley's width. Behind them, to stop people from using the alley as a thoroughfare, was a chain-link fence. It was effectively a dead end. With no other option, I clambered onto one of the recycling bins and leapt forward, grabbing the top of the fence.

Climbing a fence in a skirt and a long-sleeved blouse was easier said than done. I'd managed to almost pull myself over it when the Dark Thing plowed into the bins below me. I struggled to pull myself higher, while below, it swatted and smashed the bins out of its way. It lashed a leg up at me, and I jerked my feet up just in time to save them. Instead, its leg sliced right through the fence and one of the supporting posts like tissue paper. With that support cut off, the section of fence that I was hanging from wobbled and started sagging backward. I fell to the ground.

I was left in a corner formed by the remnants of the fence and the alley wall. The Dark Thing itself, a living barricade of sharp edges and hard points, almost blocked the whole alley wall to wall. There was enough room that I might have been able to squeeze past it, but it would have plenty of time to react and pounce on me before I got out of its striking range.

It seemed to realize that I was at its mercy. It shifted its weight toward me slowly, menacingly. I pressed back against the wall, tensing myself up for an escape attempt that I knew was doomed to failure.

I didn't realize that Maribel had entered the alley until something sailed through the air and smacked against the Dark Thing's side.

It was a soda bottle.

The bottle bounced off harmlessly, but the Dark Thing jolted in surprise. "Hey!" Maribel shouted. "Leave her alone!" As if to back up her resolve, next came a discarded coffee can. It smacked into the Dark Thing with an almost comically pathetic _bonk_ and clattered to the ground.

"Merry," I said, my voice strained with terror. "Don't piss it off, please...!"

Her distraction worked, though. The Dark Thing turned and took a lumbering step toward her. She continued chucking garbage at it, and the creature only got increasingly agitated, swatting them away with its legs and stomping menacingly. "Renko," Maribel said, her voice carefully level to avoid provoking it any further. "Once it's far enough away, we'll both make a break for it, okay?"

"Right, but I—"

I didn't get to finish that sentence, as the Dark Thing dashed forward. In a flash, it covered the few meters between itself and Maribel. It smashed the blunt, armored side of its limb into her. The motion looked almost effortless for such a large creature, but on a human scale, it was like a good smack from a baseball bat. Maribel slammed into the wall with a yelp of pain.

Before she could recover, it lashed out at her again, the razor-sharp tip of its leg gouging a score along the brick wall. Maribel stumbled backward, hunched over and holding her leg in pain. The front of her dress was shredded and bloody where it had smacked her. Those bristles that I mentioned, razor-sharp and coating every centimeter of it... that's how we learned about them. Everywhere the Dark Thing had touched, they'd sliced her skirt open and ripped shallow cuts in her thigh.

"Hold on, Merry!" I had no idea what else to do, so I settled for grabbing the nearest object, a recycling bin, and hefting it over my head. The smallest one, the petroplastics one—as if anybody in my apartment could afford them. Putting as much force into the motion as I could, I hurled it at the monster.

The recycling bin flew through the air with the power and menace of a drunken seagull. The Dark Thing spun and lunged forward to meet it. With a single leg, it smacked the bin out of the air and impaled it against the ground, with a groan of tearing plastic.

The Dark Thing took a menacing step toward me, and the recycling bin came with it. The thing was impaled on its foot. Probably even kept in place by the same stiff bristles that had ripped half the skin off of Maribel's thigh seconds earlier.

I don't know if you've ever seen an animal with a trapped foot, but that's about how the Dark Thing behaved. It fell into a frenzy, lashing out at the recycling bin and clawing against the alley floor for traction with a force that sent pebbles of cement flying.

"Run!" Maribel shouted.

I did. The Dark Thing now looked like a thrashing pile of knives, but my only way out was past it. I don't think I have ever ran faster in my life. Even once I was past it, every step of the way, I could hear it rampaging behind me. By the time I reached the stairs to my apartment, Maribel was waiting at the bottom, anxiously flip-flopping between watching the mouth of the alley, glancing toward me, and looking toward the safety of my apartment. As soon as I was close, she lunged forward to grab my hand and yank me up past the now-smashed lower steps.

We were halfway up the staircase when the Dark Thing exploded out of the alley behind us. If nothing else, we'd managed to upset it. It leapt after us, and landed on the staircase with enough force to make the wood groan, but didn't even slow down for this. It just barreled after us, with every move it made intended to push it closer.

I was in the lead now, and fumbled my keys into my hands as we crossed the last few meters toward my apartment. I miraculously found the right one on the first try, slid it in, pulled the door open, ducked through it and pulled Maribel behind me in a single motion, and slammed the door closed behind me.

A black, pointed leg slashed through the door a split second later, sending splinters of wood flying. Maribel and I both shrieked and stumbled backward. I hunted for something to use as a weapon; Maribel, far more wisely, grabbed the bookcase by my door, braced herself against it, and started pushing it over.

Another leg sliced through the door. There was now a hole in it big enough for somebody to fit their head through, and I could see the thing's body moving on the other side. I realized what Maribel was going for, and joined her at the bookcase. The thing sliced through the door again. The lower half was now little more than splinters.

The bookcase toppled over, and the entire floor shook from the impact.

The Dark Thing's leg blasted through the back of the bookcase, and I shoved an armchair in front of the new hole. Maribel pushed an end table up against it. I threw a lamp onto the pile, because honestly, why not at that point.

By the time that we realized that we could no longer hear it attacking the other side, the blockade was a meter and a half thick, and contained half of the furniture I owned. We both stumbled backward, barely daring to take our eyes off of it, and collapsed to the floor. The only sound was us gasping for air. My skin had that tight, tingling feeling of an adrenaline rush that was about one stimulus away from a panic attack. "My landlady," I said, "is going to kill me."

I gave a weak laugh at the absurdity of worrying about something like that after nearly dying. Maribel didn't seem to find it as funny. "Why was it out there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Wouldn't it be a pretty big coincidence that it just happened to be across the street from your apartment?"

"Oh." That thought quickly killed the giddy rush I felt for surviving that. "Do you think it was waiting for us?"

"It would make as much sense as anything, wouldn't it?"

I didn't answer, as I remembered that it had managed to land a blow on Maribel. My eyes trailed down to her ripped-up skirt. Blood was already glistening on her leg below it. "It got you. Are you okay?"

"Oh, um." Maribel turned her own attention to it. Moving carefully, she peeled the front of her dress up. The cloth was soggy with blood, and already sticking to her in a few places.

Beneath it, her leg wasn't quite as bad as the volume of blood had made me fear, but it wasn't pretty. A livid purple bruise crossed it at an angle, and in the center, a dozen shallow cuts had bared the raw flesh. Nothing quite deep enough to require stitches, but it didn't look pretty.

A pang of sympathy pain shot through me. "Hold still," I said. "I'll get some stuff."

I hurried into the bathroom, and returned a few minutes later with a bottle of antiseptic, a roll of bandages, and a small basin of water with a washcloth balanced precariously on top of it. I pressed the wet cloth to her leg as gently as I could. It came away saturated with dark, angry blood.

Maribel tried to hide her flinch, without much success. After a few seconds, she looked away from her leg as I worked. "Hey, Renko?" she said.

"Hmm?"

"I think we might be in way over our heads."


	7. Chapter 4

It took me most of an hour to clean and bandage the injuries on Maribel's leg. Afterward, she was left hobbling around and barely able to move. We debated whether she should go to a hospital, but neither of us were about to go back outside right after _that_ experience, let alone do so in the dark. Besides, there was still a barricade piled against my front door, and neither of us had the energy to deal with that situation. We hadn't originally planned on it, but she ended up staying over. We should have been too anxious to sleep, but I hadn't slept well the night before, and then the adrenaline crash hit me. When I slept, I slept _hard_.

The next day, thankfully, was a Saturday, so we didn't have to balance all of this absurdity with attending classes.

This was about the only positive aspect to be found. In the morning, after another discussion about whether Maribel should go to a hospital, we decided that we should probably inform Yuuta of this new development.

I lost a round of roshambo, so I got to make the call.

"Made out of _darkness_ ," Yuuta said, his voice dripping in disbelief.

"I didn't exactly get a chance to run a chemical analysis on it. If you'd like to give it a try, be my guest."

"Well, if this means that she's afraid of spiders, I can feel vindicated about that, at least."

"When they weigh two hundred kilograms and can knock down a door, I think everybody's afraid of spiders. My point is..." I shifted the phone to my other ear and brushed aside a curtain, peeking out the window. Just like the past fifteen times I'd checked, it was daylight outside and there were no killer giant spider monsters waiting for me. "We don't know where that thing went after it got bored of trying to beat down my front door. We think it was waiting for us when we got home, too. And if it ambushed _us_..."

"Then it might attack me too, yes, I understand. I'll keep an eye out, but what do you suggest I do about it?"

I drew the curtain closed and stepped away from the window. Even in the daytime, I felt uncomfortable with the window uncovered. Like a kid, afraid to sleep without a blanket over her head. "We think we might be safe during the day."

"You _think_."

"Look, we don't have a lot to work on here. But it came out of a shadow and it looks like a shadow, so maybe it doesn't like light."

"I do have a show in two days, so I can't hide at home for the entire weekend. I'd prefer not to gamble my life on 'we think.'"

"It's your call. If you die in the line of duty, you can be the world's first martyr for stage magicians. Maybe they'll build you a statue or—"

"Renko!" Maribel's voice, from the other end of my apartment, cut me off. "I think you need to see this!"

She sounded upset, and after the past few days, anything that could still worry her was something I didn't want to take lightly. "... I'll call you back, something's happening."

"What? What are you—"

I ended the call and tossed my phone onto the table, then hurried in the direction of Maribel's voice. Rounding a corner in the hall, I found her standing at the door to my bathroom. She was transfixed on something inside, and everything about her body language looked like she was seconds away from breaking into a sprint.

When I saw what she was looking at, I nearly did the same.

There, above the sink, a dark void hung on the wall. It took a second for me to recognize that it was in the frame of my bathroom mirror, because it had a depth to it that seemed to suck your attention in. This darkness filled the mirror from edge to edge, a hazy mix of black and violet that pulsated slowly.

Within the darkness, eyes stared out at us.

Each was in the shape of a human eye, but far larger. There were half a dozen of them, all scattered around the void but oriented in the same direction. They stared straight ahead, with a blank but piercing gaze. The pattern was a familiar one. It was, I now realized, what we'd seen in the video, when that strange flying thing had disappeared into the screen.

"It's a boundary," Maribel said, in the second or two I spent frozen in the doorway. Her voice was shaking, and even as she spoke, she couldn't bring herself to look away from it. "Or, um, a hole in a boundary."

"… are you saying there's another world on the other side of my mirror?"

"Not that kind of boundary. It feels like... the line between illusion and reality, or something like that." Maribel took a hesitant step closer to the thing.

"But who else can even open those things?"

"I'm not sure. I can almost see through it..."

Maribel slowly stretched her hand out toward the surface, then froze fearfully. "There's something on the other side. A, um, a _creature_ It's... watching us, I think."

Whatever horrors Maribel could see in the mirror were hidden from me, but I still found myself staring into its depths. Only a motion from the corner of my eye drew my attention away.

There, hanging in the air of my bathroom, was an appendage like nothing I had seen before. It was a long, thin thing, with wrinkled black flesh stretched across a dozen knobbly joints. Like somebody had thought insects weren't creepy enough and cross-bred them with some kind of deep sea crustacean. At the far end, it simply terminated, leaving the thing improbably hovering in the air. At the near end, a small, clawed hand was grasping toward Maribel.

This time, I didn't waste any time with shouting. I lunged forward and grabbed Maribel by the arm, yanking her out of the room. When she was clear, I slammed the door behind us. The arm made no attempt to follow.

We spent fifteen minutes watching the door fearfully before I dared to peek into my bathroom again. When I did, I found that it was empty, and my mirror was displaying nothing but an ordinary reflection. I approached it cautiously and gave it a probing poke. Sure enough, it was as solid as it had ever been.

I still made a hasty retreat from the room and closed the door behind me.

We'd had a close encounter with another one of the creatures. This one, we named the Watcher.

* * *

We had been attacked outside of my apartment. We'd been attacked by some monster _inside_ my apartment. As far as I was concerned, nowhere was safe anymore.

It called for more drastic measures.

I had been in high school when I'd announced my intention to continue the family tradition and start a new generation of the Sealing Club. When I did so, my aunt (second Sealing Club president Sachiko Usami. No entity file; as far as I know, she has no special abilities. Maybe the weird powers skip a generation.) had given me her stash of occult paraphernalia, most of which was secondhand from my grandma. It had been a large box full of stuff, and practically the only mundane thing in it was a pack of Zener cards.

There was also a photo of a gate in the Netherworld, with cherry blossoms on one side and a mundane graveyard on the other. I know it's the Netherworld, because Maribel and I investigated it once. (Case File #6) There was a series of selfies that my grandma had taken with people she swore were youkai. (A few of them did have remarkably realistic costumes if not.) A recording of an unearthly song that did strange things to the listener's mood, that was supposedly from a youkai night sparrow. A heavily-warded jar with what could only be a ghost of some sort bound inside. It was all interesting stuff, and it had done a lot to keep my interest in the occult alive, but it wasn't the end of it.

In the very bottom, in a shoebox labeled 'SEALING CLUB ARMORY,' she had left a respectable stockpile of weapons and ammunition. It was a box I'd only peeked in a few times, because frankly, I wanted to be able to claim ignorance of the contents if somebody found it. Now, I dug it out and opened it.

Sitting at the top was my goal. I'm reluctant to mention it here, because it's about ten different kinds of illegal, but this story would be hard to tell without mentioning the gun. It was a pistol. It was a _plastic_ pistol. It had been made on an old 3D printer, and it had that weird, striped texture to prove it. It had some dirt ground into it to prove that it had been on plenty of outings, and to hear Grandma Sumireko tell it, she'd shot a dozen youkai with the thing over the years. Sitting next to it was a box that I knew contained 11 bullets, and I really don't want to know where she got those.

Keep in mind, my aunt had been about sixteen when grandma passed this pistol down to her. I think Grandma had been even younger when she'd made it. My grandmother was an interesting lady.

Maribel eyed the gun uncomfortably. "Do you know how to use that?"

"I've never shot it before, but it can't be too hard," I said, holding it out and squinting at the sights. "Point it at something you want dead and pull the trigger, right?"

"Somehow I feel like there's more to it than that..." Maribel scooted the box closer to herself and started sifting through the other contents. Most of the rest weren't so impressive. A stack of baroque-looking cards with weird attack names written on them. Some kind of paramilitary manual on throwing grenades. A stapled printout of a website that claimed to have foolproof demon-banishing rituals. A pair of cheap-looking night vision goggles, missing the cover for the battery compartment. Maribel pulled them all out one by one, inspected them, and set them neatly aside. The sheer variety of weirdness on display seemed to help calm her down. "Most of this stuff seems pretty childish."

"Oh, yeah." I carefully sat the gun aside and scooted over for a look, myself. "I've never looked at it too closely, but there's some weird stuff in there. I think it's just everything Grandma had left over from when she was a teenager. Before she really learned to do magic and all that, you know?"

"I think it's kind of cute! Well, except the gun. Do you think it would actually hurt one of those things?"

"It's better than nothing, right?"

"I guess." Maribel finished leafing through a heavily-stained explosives manual and set it aside, then gave the box a shake to redistribute the remaining contents. "Oh! What's this one?"

From within, she pulled out a small brown parcel. It was wrapped in brown paper, and tied tight with twine. On top, written in marker, it said, 'OPEN IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.'

"Oh! That thing." I took the box from her and gave it a shake, like a birthday present. The contents made an underwhelming thump. "I'd forgotten this was in here."

I'd already seen the box before on one of my few inspections of the 'armory' supplies, of course. At the time, I'd been tempted to open it up just to see what was inside. Only fear of the possible consequences had prevented it.

I mean, it was a box labeled for emergencies, straight from Grandma Sumireko herself. Grandma Sumireko, who had kept a ghost, a gun, and a photograph of the afterlife sitting in the bottom of her closet for a decade like they were no big deal. Grandma Sumireko, who had told me bedtime stories about fighting youkai when I was in preschool. If it was Grandma Sumireko, this box could contain Kusanagi, the Holy Grail, and Mjolnir, and I wouldn't be _that_ surprised. (Judging by my mom's stories about her, they would probably be bundled with a note that said, "Thought these might be useful. I'm sure you'll figure out something to do with them. XOXO - Grandma.")

I turned the box over in my hands and felt the contents shift inside. It admittedly felt a bit on the light side to be Mjolnir.

"Do you know what's in it?" Maribel said, leaning in to peer at it.

"No idea."

"... think we should open it?"

"It's kind of weird to think about it. This thing's practically an heirloom now. It's probably been in here for thirty years, at least..."

"It does say 'open in case of emergency.'"

"Yeah. If this doesn't count as an emergency, I'm not sure what does." I gave it another shake. "It's probably just a weird gadget or something..."

"Well, it can't hurt to look, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Even after I said that, I stayed there, looking down at the box and trying to work up the courage to open it. Maribel watched this curiously. I think she sensed that it was a big deal for me. I took a calming breath and tugged at one end of the twine. My hands trembled as I undid the knot, and I slid the wrapping paper off, taking care to keep it one piece.

The box itself was unmarked and boring, sealed shut with two pieces of tape. I pulled them aside and grabbed the top, bracing myself for both amazement and disappointment.

I opened the box. Inside were a few pieces of paper.

"What is it?" Maribel said, leaning forward to get a better look.

I didn't answer. I was torn between confusion, disappointment, and the mounting suspicion that this might be my grandma's idea of a really long-term practical joke. "It's... a letter, I think."

The topmost few pieces of paper were, at least. I pulled them out and unfolded them, smoothed the creases out. They'd been printed from a computer and stapled together at the corner. The latter said:

 _FIRST OFF: I'M TIRED OF PEOPLE SNOOPING IN MY STUFF. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT LETTER, SO IF YOU'RE NOT A SEALING CLUB MEMBER, PUT IT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT._

To whom it may concern,

 _Okay, I'm going to level with you: If you're reading this, it probably means I've disappeared. I'm kind of expecting that to happen sooner or later. I've been getting involved in some pretty heavy stuff lately. If I get kidnapped by moon people or something, I really don't want to disappear without anybody on Earth knowing what happened, and it's not like the police department will be able to help. This is my Plan B._

 _I'm thinking of recruiting more people for the Sealing Club, though, so I guess this can be a club emergency plan too. This is only for occult emergencies! Failing an exam, running out of money, getting kicked out by your parents—these things aren't actual emergencies, compared to the stuff I've seen. If things like this are the biggest worries in your life, you should put this letter back and feel grateful that your problems are all insignificant. This letter is only meant to address occult emergencies that arise during Sealing Club activities, so if your problems are all petty and mundane, you won't find anything useful here._

By this point, hopefully all the people who shouldn't be reading this are gone. (You really should stop here if you're not still supposed to be reading! The rest of this letter deals with occult forces that don't like being disturbed! Also, I know how to cast curses.)

So, there's something horrible going on. I've disappeared, you pissed off a bunch of youkai, your best friend turned into a monster, you got possessed... stuff like that.

Whatever the case, I know people who can help.

I've got some pretty powerful friends, and they should be able to handle whatever comes up. I guarantee no matter how much horrible stuff has happened, they'll all be safe. Most of them are pretty good fighters and good with the occult stuff. Most of them are also going to be pretty hesitant to help some rando, and there are a lot of people who aren't going to be happy if you tromp around their neighborhood mentioning my name. Unless you're in a life-or-death situation, you're probably better off dealing with it yourself. But if you really do need the help, here's a list of people to contact.

First off, your best bet is to find…

"... Fujiwara no Mokou." I read the name aloud, with a soft, incredulous laugh at the end.

Maribel had been leaning over to skim the letter with me. Now, she pulled back with a frown. "Huh? Is it just a joke or something after all?"

"No, it's just..." I didn't even know how to explain it. Mokou occupied a spot somewhere between myth and fairy tale for me. Grandma had told dozens of stories about her adventures with Mokou, to the point that even my mom recycled some of them for bedtime stories. The stories all sounded like old radio serials. Tonight on The True Adventures of Sumireko and Mokou: Sumireko and Mokou in Tanuki Tag Team Trouble. Even as a kid, I'd thought that they were mostly exaggerated. That's just the kind of thing Grandma would probably do, decide that a story about fighting moon people in her dreams wasn't interesting enough without giving herself an immortal friend who flies and shoots fireballs.

If it helps, imagine that the letter said it would get me out of this jam with the help of my grandma's good friend, Doraemon. My reaction was roughly the same.

Scanning forward, I found that the letter listed half a dozen people to contact. Mokou was listed as the best bet, with each recommendation less positive than the prior one. It ended with some kind of hermit—'I don't know where she lives, and she'll probably just lecture you, but it's worth a shot.' By this point, half of them were probably dead, I figured. I flipped back to the section on Mokou.

"It says..." I looked down at the letter again, reassuring myself that I hadn't imagined those ridiculous words on the page. "Well. I think my grandma knew a superhero. Maybe a few of them."

Maribel looked like she wasn't sure whether this was just a very strange joke on my account. She lifted the other papers from the box, a small stack of them, and shuffled through them on the floor. "Oh, is this her? Mokou, right? She looks familiar, somehow..."

The other papers were photographs, as it turns out, all of the same girl. White hair, red pants covered in ofuda, and a white shirt. Her clothes didn't look like any fashion I was familiar with, but that was far from the strangest thing about them. A few of the pictures were selfies, with my teenage grandma posing with her and giving forced smiles at the camera. A few more pictures showed her scowling at the camera as she was photographed in front of nice scenery.

In one picture, her arms were spread, and she stood in the middle of a raging fire that seemed to be emanating from her. The fire was so bright that the camera had trouble dealing with it, and everything else looked washed out as a result. She did not look like she was in any pain from this.

"I guess it is, yeah." It was weird to put a face to the name.

"What's with all the fire? Is she a demon or something?"

"Knowing grandma? Fifty-fifty."

"She looks kind of young, doesn't she?"

The girl in the photographs did look young. I'd always pictured Mokou as a mature, grizzled veteran in her fifties, like my memories of Grandma. The teenager in these photographs didn't really fit my mental image. She looked around our age, actually. I guess it made sense, since Grandma had been even younger than us when they'd supposedly met. "I think she's supposed to be immortal," I explained, and immediately felt silly for doing so.

"Uh... huh. So, um. Is this stuff actually real, or...?"

"I think it is?" I looked back to the letter, Practically every other sentence said something ridiculous and unbelievable, but she'd clearly meant for it to be taken seriously. Of course, I was reaching a much more ridiculous and unbelievable decision in my head.

Maribel said it first. "It does say she's an expert with this kind of stuff..."

"Yeah."

"And, um, we _are_ pretty much out of options."

"Right..."

"Do you think we should actually give it a shot? This is an actual a life-or-death emergency, and..."

"... and if she's an immortal, she should still be around," I finished for her, with a sigh at the end.

I flipped the letter over, skimming onward. What I read next was somehow even weirder. "... you don't have any plans for the rest of the weekend, do you?"

* * *

"Your first step," the letter continued, "will be to find your way into Gensokyo."

Gensokyo, the land of illusion, a hidden youkai colony in the middle of modern Japan. Possibly the only element of Grandma's stories that was harder to believe than Mokou. Maribel and I had briefly investigated it at one point, but what was there to investigate? All we had to go on was a few rumors from occult websites and my grandmother's word that such a place actually existed. 'Gensokyo,' of course, was a common name for a small region of Nagano for most of the early 19th century, but I assure you, all of Nagano's territory was still around and accounted for at the time of our investigation. If somewhere like Gensokyo even existed, we had determined, it must have been so well-hidden that we'd never be able to find it.

Or so we'd thought. There, laid out in the letter, was the exact location of Gensokyo, a list of spots she suggested entering, different methods of getting inside, and tips for navigating once inside. I'd had a map to Japan's greatest occult mystery sitting in a cardboard box in the bottom of my closet for years, and I hadn't even known about it.

I actually have to give it to Grandma: For such an audacious plan, she managed to present it pretty coherently. The letter laid the steps out one by one, with a few contingencies apiece.

After we'd finished skimming over it together, Maribel and I were both left staring down at it in silence.

"So, just so we're clear," Maribel said, "we're talking about following directions in a fifty-year-old letter from your eccentric grandma, so we can break into an invisible country full of youkai, where we will try to convince her immortal BFF to help us beat up a giant evil spider and an eye monster that spies on us through your bathroom mirror. Which both came out of my head."

"That's about the size of it."

"If this is a dream, I really need to have a word with my subconscious."

"Mmhm."

"No offense, but it probably says something about your grandma that her solution to being chased by monsters is to go somewhere with even _more_ monsters."

"That's just the kind of woman she was."

"... and it probably says something worse about us that we're still going to do it."

It was a reckless, silly idea. It was also inevitable, I think. It wasn't like we had any better options open to us, and we were kind of getting desperate. The creatures had already demonstrated that nowhere was safe. If we were going to be in danger anyway, we might as well investigate an interesting lead while we were at it.

"Absolutely," I said. "If we leave by noon, we should have plenty of time to check it out before sunset."

* * *

Getting ready for such a momentous trip was an undertaking of its own. Grandma's instructions made it sound like we'd need to do a lot of hiking. Fortunately, as a college student, I had lots of energy drinks, nutrient bars, and assorted snacks. I had one sleeping bag, which was going to have to just be enough. I'd picked up an all-weather lighter at some point, so it went into the supplies. A flashlight. A backup battery for our phones. A few good luck charms and wards that I'd picked up over the years, because it wasn't like they could hurt at this point.

After some debate, I added the gun and the ammunition to the supplies.

It wasn't much. There were enough calories in the food to keep us going for a few days, but as scarce as the other supplies were, they wouldn't be a comfortable or productive few days. With monsters potentially lurking around every corner, neither of us felt bold enough to stop at a camping store for other supplies.

I called up a car from the local car pool, and reserved it through the next weekend. I cringed as it charged the cost of half a week's groceries to my bank account.

I heard the car arrive long before we managed to remove the furniture barricade. I peeked outside, and spent a good, long time squinting at every shadow nearby to make sure it didn't hide a hulking monster. Even with that reassurance, and in broad daylight, I felt compelled to hurry as we ferried the supplies out. I absolutely did not want a repeat of the previous day.

There were only a few last-minute things to take care of before we left. I propped a board up against my door to hide the holes torn in it. I called my landlady and told her about the door—she'd already gotten four calls about the other damage, and no witnesses had come forward yet. She pressed me for anything I could tell her about what had happened until I insisted that I'd been asleep at the time. A small lie, but I wasn't about to try explaining the whole monster-spider incident.

And with that, we were off.

* * *

Again, I'm not going to give any details that could let somebody easily find Gensokyo, but I will say that it only takes a few hours to get there by car. It was an entirely boring trip. The car got onto the high speed corridor, so we'd barely been moving for ten minutes before it settled into a stable traffic pattern. Maribel took the opportunity to catch up on a little sleep. I was left with nothing to do but watch the back of the truck in front of us, rattling along at 240 kph, and wish that I'd lined up some reading material before we left.

Instead, I pulled out my grandma's letter and read over it again, trying to squeeze any further information out of it. The thing was six pages altogether—a page for her intro, a page listing her various contacts we could go to for help, two pages of routes into Gensokyo, a page of instructions for navigating once we were inside, and a page about how to negotiate with her friends once we found them.

The fact that there was a full page dedicated to that didn't fill me with confidence.

Soon enough, though, the car pulled off onto side roads, and soon, we were winding our way toward the destination.

The letter listed several spots where we could probably find entrances into Gensokyo. A few of them were various wilderness paths in the area. As far as I could tell, the land had mostly been bought up and developed decades ago. Grandma's advice was a bit out of date. Of all the landmarks she listed, actually, I could only find one of them. So, the car pulled off of the paved road and down a winding hillside path, the remains of some road that hadn't been used in decades. Before much longer it pulled to a stop, with a pathetic beep to announce that the foliage here was too thick for its sensors, and we'd need to manually drive if we wanted to continue to our destination.

We were close enough, though. Down the hillside, peeking up past untrimmed weeds, a few pieces of bamboo stuck up at irregular angles.

"Merry," I said softly, and shook her shoulder. "Wake up. We're here."

* * *

We parked the car off to the side of the path, hidden from the main road by the underbrush. I didn't expect that anybody else was going to come this way any time soon. Once we'd gathered our things from it, we proceeded along the side of the hill.

Below us was the road, with a strip of clear-cut terrain around it. Around us, the bamboo grew thicker as we went. This bamboo, I felt, was the remainder of what had once been a much larger forest. It had made the mistake of getting in the way of civilization, and in circumstances like that, civilization usually wins. Now, it was just a scraggly strip of foliage, wedged in some almost-intractable hillside that wasn't worth anybody's time to develop. Here and there, there were signs that we weren't the first ones to explore this little outpost of wilderness. We passed an ash-colored smudge that was probably a months-old fire pit. A discarded energy drink can was half-buried in the dirt, and a few meters away, the foil wrapper from some kind of snack.

"I can see it..." Maribel said.

"Hmm?"

Maribel drew to a stop, looking into the empty space to the side of the path. "The boundary around it, I think." She trailed a hand through the air, as if running her fingers over something. "It's real..."

"Huh..." I looked at the spot with interest. It still just looked like empty air to me, of course, but I'd long since learned to trust Maribel's intuition in these matters.

"It's big. Like the one with the Netherworld, or the world of the gods."

"Do you think you could open it?"

"No. Um, well, not here, at least. I might be able to make a hole big enough for us to cross somewhere, but it's pretty strong here."

"Right..." I was hoping that Maribel could pull it off. Grandma's advice for crossing the border, sans magic or finding some kind of key, boiled down to 'wander around and daydream. You'll slip across eventually. You'll know when it happens.' "Well, let's keep looking."

We walked on. Maribel walked with a stiff limp and kept one hand outstretched, her fingers presumably running along the invisible barrier. I tried to keep quiet and let her focus on it. I wasn't sure if it actually took any effort for her to see a boundary like that, but I wasn't about to interrupt it if so.

It was sixteen minutes (and forty-six seconds) before Maribel stopped again. This time, she gave the air a few pokes, like she was evaluating something. "It's thinner here," she said. "Less strong."

I looked out over the terrain. Below us, the road had followed perpendicular to the slope of the hill. It was a more populated area, with houses on each side of the road and neon signs announcing the occasional business. Even from this distance, half a kilometer away, I could hear muffled music. Next to me, a plastic bag was snagged on a piece of bamboo, rustling in the wind. Past the houses, one of the neighboring hills was topped by a wind farm, and a dozen turbines spun in the air.

It was about the most mundane-seeming spot I'd ever visited. But, it seemed fitting, I guess. This whole thing, my closest encounter with the supernatural to date, had started in a run-down theater. "Great," I said. "Do you want to give it a try?"

"I think I can, yeah..." She gave a few more pokes with her fingers. "It might take a while, though."

"We have plenty of time."

Maribel nodded, and with a slow breath, closed her eyes. I stayed quiet and tried to study her actions. I'd always hoped that, with enough observation, I could learn the secret to her powers. There weren't many external signs, though. She stroked her fingers up and down through the air, prodding and probing at it. The air distorted and quivered, like ripples running through a pond. She pushed her fingers forward again, and space folded, sliding around either side of them. The tips of her fingers now seemed to disappear into thin air.

Slipping a finger from her other hand into the hole, Maribel teased it wider. A larger ripple ran through the air, and everything briefly shimmered, like I was looking at the world through a tank of water. As she stretched it open, the scenery flowed aside, and something new unfolded beyond it. A rim of distortion marked the edges of the hole she was tearing in space-time. Outside of the hole, there was the same modern day scene. Inside, the terrain was roughly the same shape, but a vibrant green bamboo forest stretched out toward the horizon.

When the hole was about a meter tall and half as wide, Maribel stopped and opened her eyes. She eased her grip on it, and when it didn't immediately collapse, took a step back. "There," she said. "I think that should work."

"Are you okay? That looked like a lot of work."

"It always is. I'm fine." She flashed me a smile to hide just how tired the effort had made her. It didn't last long.

"So, uh," I said. "I've been thinking... if we really do find Mokou or somebody, I'm the one who will probably do most of the talking anyway, right? I'm the one who's the granddaughter of their old friend or whatever. With your leg, it wouldn't be right to make you come, anyway. You could stay out here, and—"

"I wouldn't miss this for anything! Besides, we're the Sealing Club, right? This sort of thing is our specialty."

I couldn't help but laugh at the audacity. "Is that so?"

"Mmhm." She stepped closer, and a bit more seriously, said, "My leg hurts, but we shouldn't be in there long. Get in, get help, get out. And as both your girlfriend and the club vice president, it would be irresponsible to let you go alone."

I wanted to argue, but I could see that she wouldn't be budged. I sighed. "If we get into any trouble, at least promise you'll let me handle it? I don't want you to get hurt again."

"Oh, you sound like an action movie character when you say stuff like that!"

"I was actually being serious, you know..."

Maribel smirked and moved closer. Leaning in, she gave me a peck on the cheek and grabbed my hand. "We'll do this together, okay? It will be fine! Um, probably. Assuming we don't get eaten by youkai, I mean."

"Yeah, simple." I glanced back toward the hole and tried to work up the nerve to step forward. It wasn't the first time I'd blindly jumped into the unknown alongside Maribel, of course. This time was different, though. I had some idea of what was over there. Monsters behind us, youkai ahead of us... there was just nothing to do but keep moving forward, I supposed. "Well then, _vice president_ , what are we waiting around for?"

A million last-second doubts flooded into my mind, but our course was made up. Whatever was waiting for us on the other side, we'd have to deal with it together. "Right," she said, and slowly let out a breath to steady herself. "I'm ready!"

We stepped forward, and the mundane world around us blurred. The ground fell away, and we passed over the boundary from reality to fantasy.


	8. Chapter 5

There was a moment of disorientation and lightness. Gravity, light, sound, and the air around me all seemed to have vanished. The only thing I could feel was Maribel's hand in mine.

And then, my feet settled onto the ground.

I hadn't realized that my eyes were closed until I felt the sunlight falling on my eyelids. The sensation had left my every sense reeling, and I had to sort of ease back into the world, opening my eyes slowly and releasing my death grip on Maribel's hand.

Gensokyo was spread out before us.

Or, at least, the corner that we'd walked into. We were on a hillside, and the sparse bamboo around us sloped downward into a thicker forest, rich and dark and just a little intimidating. The terrain mostly matched what we'd seen outside, but behind us, where there had only been roads and suburbs, there was now rich forest. The geometry involved must be fascinating.

The area looked almost undisturbed, but there were a few signs of habitation. In the distance, a mountain towered above the bamboo. Even at this distance, I could see white pillars of smoke dotting it. Settlements, probably. There was a small pillar of smoke coming from somewhere nearby, too. With any luck, that meant that we weren't far from some outpost of civilization.

"Renko," Maribel said. "I... I think I've been here before."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"The mountain..." She pointed at it, then turned her attention back toward the thick bamboo ahead of us. "I remember that. And the bamboo, too. From my dreams." She laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the statement. "It's real. It's actually real."

It took a moment for me to realize what she was talking about. I had almost forgotten about Maribel's other dreams. Before the nightmares started. Ones where she would wake up in unfamiliar wilderness, and be left with nothing to do but explore and dodge attacks from monsters. (Most notably, see Case File #9) She'd spent entire weeks getting pitched into this wilderness nightly, struggling more and more each time to keep her grip on reality. Now, seeing it by daylight for the first time, in circumstances under her own control...

She was trying to hide it, but there were tears welling in Maribel's eyes. This time, though, they were ones of happiness. I didn't need to ask why. "I guess that'd make you our native guide, huh?"

"H-hardly." Maribel sniffled, and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. "I've only seen it at night, and half the time I was terrified."

"Well, there's no better time to get to know it, right?" I said, and took a few steps down the hillside. The vista below us had reinvigorated me, and I felt like I could have run a marathon. "Let's get to work."

* * *

We headed down the hillside, traveling in the direction of the smoke we'd seen. It seemed like the best course of action. Grandma's letter had said that Mokou lived in a bamboo forest, so if we were lucky, whoever lived there would know where to find her. Even if not, if we were going to find any of the people on her list, we'd need to talk to some locals sooner or later.

The bamboo and underbrush completely obscured any sign of the smoke, but with my unerring direction sense, I knew that we were still heading in the right direction. Soon, even the sun was hidden by our surroundings, and it felt like we'd been absorbed into some hidden, private world.

Apart from the literal hidden, private world of Gensokyo, I mean. It's a simile.

Throughout the walk, my mind ricocheted around my head, driven by the possibilities of the land around us. This, _this_ was exactly the kind of thing we'd been searching for in our years of exploration. Our previous breakthroughs—finding our way to the Netherworld, the TORIFUNE incident, Maribel's glimpses into other realms—all of them were minor compared to this.

The Netherworld was an amazing find, of course, but the circumstances for entering it were rare enough that we couldn't easily make repeated visits to investigate it, and there wasn't much to see in the area we'd entered. We could have taken hundreds of pictures, and when we came home, we'd only have proof that we'd been somewhere foggy with a lot of pretty trees. Good if you're trying to win a photo competition, I guess. Not much for advancing the cause of supernatural research.

We'd just shown that we could get into Gensokyo whenever we wanted, and it was close enough to Kyoto that we could make a weekend trip out of it any time we could afford a car. As we walked, I was already planning subsequent trips in my head. Our top priority would be to establish a base camp somewhere. Once we had a save place to stash supplies, we could start visiting regularly and investigate more of it.

Maybe I could write a book about our findings. _The Truth of the Occult_ , by Renko Usami. A book every bit as groundbreaking as _The Origin of Species_ had been in its own time. I'd be hailed as a revolutionary. The woman who finally approached the study of the supernatural in a rigorous, scientific way, and provided empirical evidence for the existence of other worlds. Schoolkids would be learning my name for generations to come, and even those accomplishments would seem insignificant if I could find some way to explain magic and youkai in the framework of modern theoretical physics...

My head was so filled with these kind of selfish thoughts that Maribel was the one who noticed our more immediate concerns. "Um, Renko," she said. "Are we still going the right way?"

"Yep, we are."

"We've been walking for half an hour now..."

"Twenty-seven minutes, twenty-eight seconds," I said, without a second thought.

"... and we've already passed this spot two times before," Maribel continued patiently.

I checked the stars. Sure enough, they confirmed that we were still heading the right way. Our course had deviated by a few degrees, but not enough to get us lost in half an hour. Our location, though... our coordinates _were_ very close to the spot where we'd entered Gensokyo. Within half a kilometer, actually. We probably weren't making very good speed, but certainly we'd been going faster than a kilometer per hour.

As for the terrain about us, I hadn't been paying attention. "Well, we're still going the right way," I said, less certain this time. I pointed at the pillar of smoke, straight ahead of us and just barely visible past the canopy. "See?"

"Right," Maribel said. "I must just be imagining things."

Ten minutes of walking later, and the terrain looked very familiar.

"How about this?" Maribel said, and threaded a ribbon out of her hat. She tied it into a bow around a bamboo stalk. "You pay attention to our heading, okay? I'll swear we've been here three times now."

Ten minutes of walking later, and Maribel's ribbon came back into view.

We both slowed to a stop and stared at it, fluttering lightly in the breeze ahead of us.

"We were heading the right way, right?" Maribel said.

"Yeah. The whole time." I'd been checking our heading every few seconds, and we really had been going in the right direction.

"Then how is that even possible?"

"Um."

It is, of course, possible to walk in a straight line and still return to the spot where you began. The most obvious case is in a space with curvature. Consider a sphere: Whether you're on the inside or the outside, you can walk straight forward and end up back where you started. There are, of course, more exotic solutions involving folded dimensions or topographic transformations within manifolds. Considering only the ones that would have looked flat from the outside, as the bamboo forest did, the possibilities are (I just remembered this isn't what I'm supposed to be writing about, so I'm going to stop now. Anyway, if you're actually curious on the topic, Professor Gutiérrez in the university's math department is an excellent resource.)

Anyway.

"It seems pretty weird." I stepped forward and rubbed the ribbon between my fingers. It wasn't an illusion. I untied it and offered it to Maribel.

"I might call it 'non-Euclidean.'"

As Maribel threaded the ribbon back into her hat, I considered the situation. We'd arrived a bit after three PM, and been walking for forty-one minutes. We still had a few hours before sunset. Maribel was noticeably limping, but since she hadn't said anything about her leg, I foolishly assumed she was okay. The smoke looked like we were only a kilometer or two from the source. If we could actually get there, it should have been a pretty short trip. Plenty of time for a little experimenting.

"Let's try a different approach," I said. I turned, and walked at a ninety degree angle away from our goal.

* * *

Please let me give you some advice: If you're ever lost in a fantasy wonderland, and walking in the right direction doesn't seem to be working... the solution is not, in fact, to purposely walk in the wrong direction.

This probably isn't surprising to people who aren't me, but it actually just gets you more lost.

Which is to say, in the hour and a half of walking after I changed our course, we went from 'pretty lost' to 'hopelessly, incredibly lost.'

No more were we wandering in circles in the same boring tract of bamboo. No, now we were wandering in a variety of areas, with new and exciting stimuli.

As the day approached sunset, the land around us grew less welcoming. I started hearing animals howl in the distance—I think some of them were wolves, but those were the _less_ scary-sounding ones. Other things moved in the brush around us, always just out of sight.

My initial elation was replaced by anxiety, as I remembered the actual content of Maribel's dreams of Gensokyo.

The times she'd mentioned a bamboo forest, it had never sounded like a nice place. She'd only been here a few times, and they were things of terror. Monsters chasing her in the night, or wandering for hours without finding any signs of civilization.

We'd already gotten the wandering part down. As something that sounded almost human screeched at the moon in the distance, I didn't feel like the monster thing was far behind.

There were other issues, too. Maribel's leg. I'd been so wrapped up in excitement that I'd almost forgotten about it, but it was hard to miss now. She was hobbling along, keeping it held stiff, and she was sweating and pale. When I pressed for details, she said it was nothing to worry about yet, but I could see the way she occasionally winced in pain when she moved it.

I checked our position again, and confirmed what I already knew: At this point, we were far enough from the barrier that we'd be lucky to get back to the car before dark even if we could walk straight in here.

So, to recap: When we made camp, Maribel was barely able to walk, thanks to her wounded leg. I'd gotten us lost in a land populated by youkai. And we only had about an hour left before nightfall.

I am one hell of a club leader.

* * *

We debated whether or not to build a fire. I _had_ at least thought far enough ahead to bring a lighter. We decided against it, though, at least for now. The food we'd brought was all stuff that didn't need any preparation, and we thought a fire would just make us an even bigger target. Whatever those things howling in the forest were, they didn't sound like they were going to be scared off that easily.

So, we established a camp as well as we could with our limited supplies. We found a small clearing in the bamboo, where the ground was mostly flat and grassy. Sitting side by side, we each took a nutrient bar and one bag of snacks from our stockpile. Maribel took a bottle of water, and I triggered the heating element on a can of coffee and let it warm while I inspected Maribel's leg.

It wasn't pretty. The bandages fell away, and with each new bit of skin they revealed, I got more worried. The flesh had already been mottled in purple bruises, but now they were livid, with a ring of red, swollen flesh around them. Each spot where her skin had been sliced open was worse, with unhealthy-looking grey-green tinges to the scabs. Even sitting there in the shady forest as the sun set, her skin was slick with sweat.

"This doesn't look good," I said.

"It's, um." Maribel had been looking away as I inspected it, but let her gaze turn guiltily back toward her leg. "It doesn't hurt that much..."

I gave the swollen area a cautious poke. The skin was burning hot, and it felt taut under my finger. Like an overfilled water balloon. "It's infected."

"Is there anything we can really do about it now, though?"

"I'll clean it up after we eat," I promised. We had, thankfully, brought some basic first aid supplies with us. Nothing more than some bandages and antibiotic cream, since I'd already planned on changing her bandages while we were here, but better than nothing. Then again, what was infecting her leg had already survived a round of disinfectant and cleaning. And had somehow progressed to this point within twenty-four hours of the injury. I'd just have to hope that we could wrap things up here and get to a hospital before it got too bad.

And the sun crept downward, and it got harder and harder to ignore the fact that it would soon be dark on top of everything else.

I was just debating whether or not to raise the issue of a fire again when a burst of light lit up the forest.

It was hard to miss. We both looked up. Nearby, maybe half a kilometer away, some bright, soundless flash had momentarily banished the night. From the same direction, an orange glow followed this. It tapered off, and smoke drifted up into the dark sky.

Soon, the phenomenon was almost constant. Rainbow light shone above the canopy, with the occasional laser-like beam of it spiking up toward the heavens. The orange glow returned, with a now-constant cloud of smoke that made it clear that something was burning. Whatever was happening was distant enough that the sounds were quiet and muffled. Anywhere else, I might have thought it was just a really subdued fireworks show.

"What do you think it is?" I said.

"Dunno," Maribel said.

"Do you think we should check it out?"

This one, Maribel took longer to answer. She watched the distant light show with a frown. "It could be dangerous."

"Yeah..."

We spent another minute or two watching the lights in silence before she said, "It's probably people, wouldn't you think? I don't think monsters would use fire."

"Unless it's a dragon."

"Then what about the lasers?"

"I don't know, a laser dragon? You're right, though. It's probably people." I glanced at the stars and memorized our position. "If we leave, we probably won't be able to find our way back here."

"Yeah... Still. It seems like something we should check out, doesn't it?"

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

"We already walked this far," Maribel said, pushing herself to standing. She tried to hide her wince. "A little more can't hurt that much, right?"

Visions of the Nobel Prize in Unified Thaumaturgy (which would obviously be created if I could accomplish my goals here) danced in front of my eyes, and I nodded. Shrugging my backpack on, I pushed myself to standing again. "Alright," I said. "Let's go."

As the night had approached, I'd started reaching into my pack to brush my fingers over the pistol's grip every now and then, reassuring myself that it was still there. Now, as we walked, I pulled it out and loaded six bullets into it. I tried to look as confident as possible as I cocked it. Maribel watched this, but said nothing. The rest didn't seem to have helped her condition, and after a mere few minutes of walking, she was cringing in pain and breathing unsteadily.

We crept closer, and the lights got harder to miss. The flashes cast long shadows across the forest, striped light-and-dark patterns from the bamboo, like prison cell bars in an old movie. Soon, the crackle of flames and the sound of distant shouting was added to the mix.

I knew now that whatever was going on over there probably wasn't anything we wanted to get involved in, but curiosity drove me on.

As we climbed up the side of a small hill, we got close enough that I could make out the occasional word of the shouting. "... training... princess?!" A roar of flame lit up the night. "... sloppy... stop shouting... kill me?!" A sharp-edged rainbow glare answered it.

I stayed low to the ground as we approached the peak of the hill. There, a few dozen meters down a bamboo-covered slope, was the source of our light show.

It was a clearing. Unlike the one we'd camped in, it looked like it was man-made. A road of some sort, a packed dirt path a meter or two wide, and the underbrush had been trimmed down to bushy grass for another meter or so on either side. The bamboo arched inward overhead to form crude walls.

More notably, though: It was, well, on fire. Or had been, at least. Acrid smoke hanged heavy in the air, and swaths of the bamboo on either side were scorched or smoldering. The ground had been churned to a muddy mess under trampling feet, and even in the low moonlight, I could see glistening darker spots that had to be blood.

There were two women on the path.

The first was wearing a robe. It had started out pink, but its surface was now scorched along one side, with a red swath up the side of her face to suggest that it, too, had been burnt. Her hair was black and hanged well past her waist, and it was a mess. One eye was swollen shut, and one arm was hanging limp at her side.

With her still-working arm, she was strangling the other woman.

Below her, pinned to the ground, was a woman with long, white hair. Her shirt had probably once been white, but was now smeared with blood and mud. Her face was a battered mess.

This one, I instantly recognized from the photograph. We had found Fujiwara no Mokou.

I crept further down the hillside, now driven to see as much of the scene as I could. "You seem tired," the black-haired woman said. It would almost sound sympathetic, if she hadn't said it while tightening her grip on Mokou's throat. "If you have any more insults to spit, I'd get them out now. I'd like to finish this and get home early tonight."

Mokou tried to retort, but the choking seemed to be having its effect. Her voice was a soft wheeze, and something gurgled deep inside her. I didn't catch a word of what she said.

"Is that..." The black-haired woman released Mokou's neck, and Mokou wheezed in a breath of air. She didn't get much reprieve, though. The woman grabbed the collar of her shirt and used it as a handle, pulling Mokou back and smashing her head against the ground. "So?!" Another blow against the ground. Mokou started thrashing beneath her, but she held her grip for another slam.

A shirt button popped off, and black-hair woman's grip faltered for just a second. It was long enough for Mokou, who leaned upward for a brutal headbutt. I could hear the crack of skull-on-skull from ten meters away, enough to make me wince. The black-haired woman was sent reeling backward. Mokou gave her a shove, sending her sprawling backward into the mud.

"Pretty confident talk for somebody who can't even strangle someone right," Mokou said, as she rose to standing. Not that she looked very good, herself. Her voice was raspy, and she was shuddering in pain with every breath. She still moved with surprising speed, taking a shambling step toward the black-haired girl. One hand clenched into a fist, and fire crackled around it. She sort of half-dove, half-collapsed onto her, putting the entire force of her body into a punch. Flame streaked through the air behind her, marking out her fist's path, and it slammed into the girl's ribcage with the sizzle of burning flesh and the crack of _somebody's_ bone.

I'm pretty sure that one of Mokou's fingers had broken, actually, but she didn't let it stop her. She simply gritted her teeth and started pounding her fist into the girl's stomach brutally, giving little grunts and hisses of pain with each blow. The black-haired girl shuddered beneath her, but somehow kept enough composure to pat the ground for a weapon. Her fingers settled on a fist-sized rock, half-buried in the dirt, and she worried it loose. Mokou punched her again, making her whole body jolt. In the gap between punches, she whipped the rock up. It slammed into the side of Mokou's head with a nauseating crack.

The other attacks had been things that would have dropped a normal human in pain, but this one was something else. Blood gushed out, and when the girl pulled the rock back, there were small chunks of flesh clinging to it. Mokou immediately went limp, but the girl didn't let that stop her. She rolled over on top of Mokou, straddling her waist, and began systematically pummeling her face with the rock.

I'll spare you the details, but by the time she finished, Mokou's head was little more than a red smear on the ground. The girl rose off of Mokou, stumbled backward, and with one final overhead swipe, dropped the rock onto her ribcage. She stood there, gulping down ragged breaths and shuddering as she took stock of herself. Mokou, the one we had come to for help, was dead in a very, very decisive way.

Maribel had flinched back during all of this, and was now lingering at the top of the hill, on the verge of running. I had been frozen in place with fear. Only now, seeing the girl push herself up from her bloody kill, did I realize that I was about thirty seconds too late to run. I took a slow step backward, and motioned for Maribel to retreat, as well. My entire throat was clenched up in nausea, and I felt like I might vomit at any second. I took another step back... and my foot settled onto some dry underbrush. It settled down with a series of crackling leaves, and the black-haired woman's head shot up.

"Who's there?!" the woman's voice demanded. I stopped in my tracks, wishing I could silence even my heartbeat, while my hands fumbled with the pistol.

Her eyes met mine past the wall of bamboo. "More assassins, is it?"

My cover was blown. There was only one thing left to do. "Merry, run!" I turned, and took off at a dash through the forest.

I ran up and along the side of the hill, weaving my way past clumps of bamboo. Higher up, I could hear Maribel doing the same thing, and I tried to angle toward her so we didn't get completely separated. My foot caught a fallen stalk, and I stumbled to a near-stop for just long enough to hear the woman behind me shout, "Wait, stop!"

I wasn't about to do _that_. As I pushed through a thin wall of underbrush near the crest of the hill, the road below came back into view. Maribel had already reached it, but things didn't look good. She was running stiffly thanks to her leg, gasping for air even after a few seconds of running. Passing through the last of the thick weeds, I made it into the clearing around the road, leapt over the ditch along the side... and had nearly caught up to Maribel when she slumped down to the ground.

"Merry!" I was momentarily torn between fleeing and helping her, but the choice was clear. I stumbled to a stop next to her and crouched down. She was struggling to push herself up from the ground, but barely managing that much. Wheezing for air and shivering in exertion, I didn't think she was going to get very far on her own.

"I-I'm..." Maribel let out a gasp as she failed to stand again, and slumped down to a crouch. "I don't think running was a good idea."

I shot a quick glance behind us, but the woman was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she'd figured out we weren't assassins. I wasn't about to take the risk, though. Quickly, I slid in next to Maribel, wrapping an arm around her for support. "Don't strain yourself. Once we're away from here, we'll, we'll go to a hospital or something. We can always come back another time and—"

I was cut off by the sound of footsteps settling onto the road. There, barely a meter away from us, stood the black-haired woman, still caked in blood and mud. For the moment, I was much too frantic to wonder how she'd gotten there. "I did tell you to stop."

The gun was still in my free hand, and I whipped it up, trying to point it at her as imposingly as a terrified teenager can. "S-stay back!"

"A gun?" the woman said. "How novel."

"I'll do it," I whimpered.

"Renko," Maribel mumbled, barely audible. Her head was hanging, and her eyes looked very distant. "Don't."

The woman stepped closer. I hesitated to shoot, and it was enough time for her to settle her hand onto the barrel of the gun and push it down. "I already figured out that you aren't assassins," she said. "Even the ones that Mokou sends are brave enough to try attacking before they flee."

 _Mokou._ It was nice to have some confirmation that we'd found the girl we were looking for, even if she was dead. "You killed her," I said, with the fact still not quite seeming real yet. I'd never seen anybody die before, let alone get murdered. It was pretty messed up. "I-I mean, um! We won't tell anybody, I swear! We're not from here, we're—!"

"Outsiders, I know." She smiled. "I apologize for scaring you. May I have a moment to compose myself?"

This was not the direction I'd expected this conversation to go. I raised the gun, and pointed it at her again. "Please, just... leave us alone. We just want to get out of here." Next to me, Maribel moaned and mumbled something under her breath. I wished she was more lucid. She always had been the better negotiator.

"And I don't intend to stop you," the woman said. "One moment."

The girl took a step backward, and clasped her hands in front of herself. Something very strange happened to my perceptions. I can almost swear that I saw her stand there for ages, with her flesh slowly knitting itself back together. On the other hand, I know for a fact that no time passed.

There was a slight silver glow about her, I guess. Just for an instant. When it cleared, she was healed. The battered and bloodied creature in front of us had been replaced. Now, she was...

Ever since I decided to write this case file, I've been struggling with the topic of how to write about her. She was beautiful, but putting it like that doesn't really capture the magnitude of it. She was beautiful in the same way that black holes are dense.

Which isn't to say she was beautiful in the usual modern sense of the word. Her figure was insinuated in delicate curves. Her face was attractive but not a masterpiece of seduction. It was more... there is a saying, that something is perfect not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away. That was her. Her every movement was effortless and natural. Like the whole world was one big movie, and she was the only actor who'd had time to get into costume and read the script.

She was, I would later learn, a princess. Looking at her, one got a taste of what must have made monarchy attractive to people in the past. It only made sense for somebody like her to be in charge. She was a better grade of person, frankly.

In any case, she'd healed herself in the blink of an eye, and now stood in front of us, seeming pretty oblivious to the fact that I was about to start weeping at her beauty. "Now, then. I'm sorry that you had to see that fight," she said. "We merely had some business to settle."

When _she_ said that, it almost sounded reasonable. Between that, and my amazement at her instant healing, it actually took a second or two for me to realize the problems with that statement. "You, you _killed_ her!"

"Please don't worry about that. She's just being a sore loser. She'll be better soon enough."

I dared to look back toward the 'sore loser,' a hundred meters or so down the road. I felt bile rise into my throat again. This entire night felt like one bad dream. The woman was beautiful, but not quite enough for me to overlook the whole 'murder' thing. "G-get away from us."

"Mokou is immortal. I understand what this looks like, but there are forces at work here that you aren't familiar with." The woman stepped closer again, as if daring me to shoot. "My name is Kaguya Houraisan," she said, and glanced to Maribel. "Is your friend okay?"

"She's sick."

"And if I had to guess, I'd say that you're lost, right?"

 _No, we're here to talk to the girl you just beat to death with a rock._ It seemed like a ridiculous thing to say, probably because it was. Still, Grandma had said that Mokou was immortal. It eased my worry a little. Just a little. "This place... is a little hard to navigate," I admitted. It hurt to say. I'd never gotten lost outdoors in my _life_.

Kaguya nodded, and gestured toward a nearby hill. "I live just over there. It's a short walk, and one of my friends is a doctor. It's been a long time since we had visitors from the outside, and I'm sure she'd be willing to help your friend. I'd be honored if you would stay for the night."

"Why should we trust you?"

"I don't have anything to gain by killing you. The youkai around here, though... well, I'm sure they'd appreciate a snack."

So, on the one hand, it was a completely ridiculous idea. The woman had murdered somebody in front of us not even five minutes ago, and was nowhere near explaining it to my satisfaction.

On the other hand, I could still hear those creatures howling in the distance, and it was getting pretty dark. If we stayed out here... well, I don't want to imply that Maribel and I were incompetent, but we'd hit a lot of issues with our plan. Maribel was slumped against my side, and her skin was burning hot. At this rate, I was going to need to carry her back to the border myself and call an ambulance before the night was over.

And, even with the murder, I somehow felt like I could trust Kaguya to not do the same to us. It was just something about her. Call it charisma.

I caved in. "... alright," I said, slowly lowering the gun and already wondering if I was walking into some sort of horrible trap.

"Wonderful. Right this way, please."


	9. Chapter 6

The trip to the mansion was a short one, and nowhere near enough time to prepare myself for the strangeness that lay within. A small stampede of rabbits had greeted us when the door opened, and Kaguya had quite cheerfully handed us off to her doctor friend, whose name I was told was Eirin. Eirin had accepted this with nothing but a resigned sigh, like having bewildered, gun-toting teenagers from another dimension foisted on her was a daily nuisance around here. Who knows, maybe it was. Now, we were in her examination room. Kaguya watched, while Eirin tended to Maribel with some help from her nurse.

Her nurse was also a rabbit. A girl with lavender hair, rabbit ears, and a poofy tail. In a suit. Because the night apparently hadn't been surreal enough already.

"It's not uncommon among injuries from youkai," Eirin said, as she filled a syringe from a small bottle. "Several of the more bestial types carry diseases, both mundane and magical."

"Ah..." I said, and tried not to get too distracted by wondering what a magical disease entailed. "I did clean her wound with some antiseptic..."

"Had it been blessed by a priest?" she asked flatly.

"Well, no."

"Then it didn't do anything. Udongein, hold her arm—yes, like that, thank you." Eirin poked the tip of the needle into Maribel's arm and injected the fluid. Maribel's condition had gotten worse since we'd arrived, and she was now slumped back in the chair, her eyes closed, breathing in quick, shallow breaths. She hadn't shown any awareness of the situation for several minutes.

"Is she going to be okay?" I asked, for approximately the ninetieth time. "It all happened so fast... she was fine this morning."

"Yes, this strain is like that," Eirin said, without an ounce of apparent concern in her voice. After watching Maribel appraisingly for a few seconds, she turned back toward the cabinets along the wall and started sorting through their contents. "It can take a day or two to reach the bloodstream, but once it does, it progresses quickly. She would have been dead by morning."

"So... _is_ she going to be okay?"

"She will be fine." Confident, but without an ounce of soothing reassurance. It was a statement of fact. I wondered if the woman had ever heard the words 'bedside manner.'

"Eirin is very good at what she does," Kaguya said, trying to hide her amusement at the exchange. She stepped closer, a warm smile on her face. "Again, I'm sorry for frightening you earlier. I know that the circumstances are strange, but please, I'd like you to feel comfortable while you're here. Would you like any refreshments?"

I wanted to decline, but we _had_ left camp before I'd even gotten anything into my stomach. Free health care already sort of stretched the bounds of traditional hospitality, so pushing it a bit farther didn't seem too unforgivable. Conversely, if there really was something sinister going on here, poisoning my drink seemed like it would just be needlessly baroque compared to their many other options. "Well, it was a bit of a walk..."

"A meal, then," Kaguya finished for me. "Inaba?"

"Ah, right. Coming right up, your highness."

The rabbit girl headed out of the room before I could even protest my request getting handed off to her. She seemed harried as it was. I'd also thought her name was Udongein, not Inaba. But even more pressing than those... "Er, 'your highness'?"

"A princess yes," Kaguya said, then paused in realization and drooped slightly. "You haven't heard of me?"

"No. Should I have?"

"I'm led to believe," Kaguya said, inclining her head as if bashfully accepting a compliment, "that my beauty is legendary among humans."

"Er, well. Nobody in the rest of the world really knows about Gensokyo, so—" And I paused, as several disparate parts of my brain clicked together. "Your name is Kaguya," I said.

"Yes."

"And you're ridiculously beautiful."

"Well, I wouldn't want to brag, but..."

"She would, actually," Eirin muttered under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.

"Are you going to say that you're from the moon, too?"

I'd asked the question sarcastically, but Kaguya beamed. "Yes, exactly!"

"Er, so, are you...?" Four words in, I realized it was an irrelevant question. I'd already accepted that she was a murderer who could instantly heal any injury and lived in a house with a sapient rabbit nurse. 'Claims that she's _the_ Princess Kaguya' was just one more item for a very tall pile. Any other day, I might have eagerly pressed her for details, but... "Never mind. So, is Mokou actually going to be okay tomorrow, or...?"

"Oh, yes. Please believe me when I say that I did nothing to her that she hasn't done to me hundreds of times before."

That left me with about ten million questions, but before I could ask them, Maribel's voice came from my other side. "Um, Renko? Where are we...?"

"Merry!" I whirled on her, and only barely restrained my urge to pull her into a hug. In the few minutes that Kaguya had kept my attention off her, she'd changed dramatically. Her face was back to its normal coloration, and her breathing had slowed down. Apart from looking a little groggy, I wouldn't have known anything was out of the ordinary. "You passed out, and it was looking pretty bad, so..."

"You collapsed while in the early stages of septic shock from a youkai-induced infection," Eirin said, with her voice raised to speak over me. Now that her patient was lucid again, she was all business. Without further introductions, she stepped in and grabbed Maribel's chin, tilting her head up and using a monocular to inspect her eyes. "I gave you something to repair the damage, and it seems to be working. And..." Her gaze flicked side to side as she inspected each eye in turn. "Your friend seems to have gotten you here before there was any brain damage."

"A-ah, um." Maribel tensed up under Eirin's ministrations, and when the doctor released her, she rubbed at the spot where she'd been holding her chin. "Well, thank you..."

"I'm going to give you something to weaken the disease," Eirin continued, stepping back over to the cabinet and grabbing one of the bottles she'd retrieved during her search. "It won't eliminate it, but it should stop it from causing any more problems while your immune system does its job. You'll need to avoid alcohol for the next two days until it's out of your system. Do you understand?"

"Well, yes, um, but..."

Eirin uncapped a fresh syringe, and Maribel stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes fixated on it.

"Good," Eirin said, oblivious to Maribel's reaction. She poked the syringe into a bottle and filled it with golden liquid, then turned back toward us. Only then did she notice that Maribel was frozen in anxiety. "... is something wrong?"

"I, um. Um. No, it's fine," Maribel stammered, suddenly very interested in staring at a spot on the floor.

"You _did_ pounce on her before the poor thing could even finish waking up," Kaguya said, teasingly.

"Merry has had some bad experiences with doctors," I said. "She gets nervous, that's all."

"I see."

It was another souvenir of the TORIFUNE incident. Even after her stay at the sanatorium, Maribel had been subjected to an endless series of medical examinations and checkups, all searching for lingering effects of the virus. She always came back from them shaky and tired, but it had still taken me a month to catch on to the reason: after spending a week getting poked and prodded by doctors, just being in a doctor's office was enough to leave her anxious and uncomfortable.

As her girlfriend, I'd gotten used to accompanying her to the doctor for moral support. I knew the steps of this dance. I reached over and took Maribel's hand, interlacing our fingers. "Don't worry, Merry, we're safe here." I wasn't entirely sure of that, myself, but that wasn't what she needed to hear right now. "We'll go to find Mokou again in the morning. How do you feel, though?"

"Better. A lot better, actually..."

"The serum has a fairly powerful rejuvenating effect," Eirin said, stepping over with that syringe. "You'll be happy to know that any tumors you may have had are now in remission. Now, your arm, please."

Maribel eyed the syringe again. Her whole body tensed in protest, but reluctantly, she held out her free arm.

Eirin daubed the inside of her elbow with a disinfecting swab. Maribel squeezed her eyes shut and started breathing in short, anxious breaths. The needle pushed into her flesh. Maribel whimpered. Her hand clenched down on mine, and I squeezed back reassuringly.

The last of the medication disappeared into Maribel's arm, and Eirin pulled the needle back, already dabbing at the injection spot with a piece of gauze. "That should be all. Hold this, please."

Maribel pried her eyes open with a sigh of relief, and I released her hand. She pushed the gauze down with two fingers, looking glad that the whole ordeal was over.

"Now, then," Kaguya said, as cheerfully as ever. "I'm sure you two have had a long day. Should we go see how Inaba is doing on that dinner?"

* * *

Our night was a dizzying blur of new experiences. I would love to go into detail here, but honestly, most of it is kind of tangential to this case file. I'm going to put together entity files for most of the people we met, and I might make some kind of record on the mansion—Eientei, apparently—itself, so you can look for those once they're done.

To summarize: The meal was very nice, and within ten minutes of sitting down to eat, Maribel was as good as new. Her recovery from the disease was nothing short of miraculous. The change in our overall mood was just as sharp. Barely an hour before, we'd been cowering in the forest, waiting to die. Now, here we were, being served warm food while rabbits swarmed us to compete for Maribel's attention. It was almost enough to make me forget about the violent scene we'd been forced to watch that evening. Almost.

After an hour of answering questions about the current state of the outside world, Maribel and I were set up in a guest room. We took the welcome opportunity to wash up a little and change clothes and then settled into futons on the floor, with only moonlight trickling through the window for illumination.

When I woke up, at 7:13 AM, I was alone in the room. Well, apart from some rabbits, but I don't think those really count. They all got scared and scattered when I sat up, anyway.

I'm going to be honest with you: I was really curious about why the house was full of rabbits, but I was afraid it might be rude to ask, in case they were Inaba's cousins or something.

The night before, I'd been too busy dealing with the fallout of our evening to really appreciate the strange situation we were in. Now, waking up in this weird, otherworldly house, it was a bit harder to brush off. I had slept in a mansion that was hidden in a space-warping bamboo grove, which itself was in a pocket dimension to begin with, and where a casual murderer who claimed to be a moon princess lived, with her friends, a girl with rabbit ears, and a doctor.

Okay, sure. Why not.

I could hear conversation outside, so I crept across the room and peeked out the door. Down the hall, in the main room, Maribel and Kaguya were kneeling at a table. "Oh, Renko!" Maribel spotted me immediately and gestured me closer. "Just in time! We were about to have breakfast."

I straightened my clothes and walked out to join the two of them. A loose halo of rabbits were relaxing on the floor around them. I'm pretty sure that Maribel had established herself as a very good person to hang around, if you were a rabbit and wanted to be petted. Through a doorway, I could hear the unmistakable sound of cooking. I'd gotten enough of a hang for the household's social dynamics to guess that Inaba was the one who took care of that sort of thing.

"Good morning," Maribel said, as I settled down at the table.

"Morning..."

"Miss Houraisan was just telling me about the moon."

"... ah."

"She's from there."

"Oh, er... yes, she mentioned that yesterday."

" _The_ moon. The Lunar Capital! With moon rabbits pounding mochi. An entire civilization!"

We had, of course, long suspected that there was a hidden civilization on the moon. It was one of those things that kept cropping up in the literature, and had a little more evidence behind it than you would expect. Most notably, the historic incident in which hundreds of people worldwide reported visiting the Lunar Capital in their dreams. (See: article by Tennenbaum and Ostermeyer, _The Journal of Psychic Inquiry_ , July 2015 issue)

Now that we've got some firsthand accounts of it from Kaguya, I'll probably write a file on it. Once I'm done with this file. And the file on Kaguya. And Eirin. And Eientei. It could be a while, is what I'm getting at.

At the time, though, I just said, "I've always wondered how the rabbits are supposed to breathe up there."

Kaguya smiled. "I'd love to tell you all about it, but you have business to attend to with Mokou this morning, right?"

I glanced to Maribel uncertainly. It still felt a bit odd talking about this with Kaguya, since she had, you know, beaten Mokou to death in front of our eyes, but I didn't sense any hostility in the question. "We are, yes," I admitted. "I'm hoping she'll be able to help us with some problems."

"Well. It isn't polite to say bad things about somebody when they aren't around to defend themselves—" The lavender-haired rabbit girl walked into the room and silently sat a pot of tea on the table between us, and Kaguya inclined her head in gratitude. "—thank you, Inaba—so I'll just say that you should be careful when dealing with that girl. She's very violent, I'm afraid."

"Is that why you... fought—" (killed) "—her? Self-defense?"

"It's a very long story. 1300 years, even. I wouldn't want to bore you with the details."

"Ah."

Inaba had been hovering near the table uncertainly, and now took the opportunity to interject, "Breakfast will ready soon, your highness. Um, will your guests be leaving afterward...?" She sounded hopeful that we would.

"I'll leave that up to them," Kaguya said, and poured herself a cup of tea.

"Oh. Um, well." I rubbed at the back of my neck and looked down, mentally grumbling. I'd already made the decision on that last night. If we were going to get to class tomorrow, we only had about twelve hours to get back to Mokou, convince her to help us, have her do whatever she had in mind, walk back to the barrier, and drive home. That didn't leave a lot of wiggle room for relaxing here, let alone studying the place in the kind of detail it obviously deserved.

I'd just like to say: If you think that 'I have class Monday' is a bad reason to leave a safe haven against the monsters that are trying to kill you, I would, objectively, agree. Subjectively, my parents would _not_ be happy if I skipped weeks of classes. Since they were covering my tuition and a large share of my rent, it was very much in my best interests to keep them happy if I wanted to, say, finish college.

"We probably should leave after breakfast," I said. "Sorry. This forest is hard enough to navigate, and I'd really prefer to get back to the car before nightfall..."

"I can at least show you back to Mokou's house. After that, you're on your own, I'm afraid. She and I don't see eye to eye."

"So she isn't, um... dead?" Maribel said.

"It's been almost twelve hours. I'm sure she'll be fine." Kaguya took a sip of her tea. "Maybe a little cranky, though."

* * *

The breakfast, like the previous night's meal, was wonderful. Afterward, our preparations were pretty quick. I really would have liked a bath, but with no indoor plumbing, I guessed that it would take a while. So, after thanking Eirin and Inaba for their hospitality, we set off for Mokou's house, led by Kaguya.

Again, the bamboo forest seemed to cooperate with a native. I kept an eye on the sky this time, trying to judge whether there was some trick to it, but we really did seem to be heading in a straight line. Soon, we were on the narrow path that we'd seen last night... and in another ten minutes of walking, we passed the spot where the fight had happened.

Kaguya didn't even acknowledge it, but the damage was more apparent by day. There was a tract of broken and trampled bamboo, ending in the scorched area where the final battle had happened. In several places, the dusty dirt of the path was stained brown with dried blood. Especially in the spot where Mokou had died, the previous night.

The smell still hanged in the air, though. It made me glad I hadn't eaten much at breakfast.

And yet, there was no corpse. I took that as a good sign.

A few hundred meters farther down the road, Kaguya paused. "This is probably as far as I should take you, I'm afraid," she said, and gestured to a narrow footpath leading up a hillside. "Mokou's house is at the end of that trail."

I didn't relish the idea of walking in this forest alone again, but at least we were near a road. If we got lost, we could find our way back here easily enough, I assumed. A road had to lead _somewhere_. "Thank you."

"Thanks," Maribel said. "I guess this is bye, huh...?"

"Mokou will probably refuse whatever request you're making on principle if she sees you talking to me," Kaguya said, with a slight smile. "I'll wait here for a few minutes. If anything goes wrong, you can come find me, and I can at least least help you find your way out."

Maribel stepped forward and pulled Kaguya into a soft hug. Kaguya looked surprised, but returned it. "I'm sure we'll come back sometime," Maribel said. "This place is too interesting not to!"

"I'll look forward to it, then."

After we finished our goodbyes, Maribel and I set off down the path. It was a narrow, winding one, with underbrush clawing at us from both sides. It snaked its way up the hill, until we could see out over the forest below. From here, we could even see Eientei, a small bamboo-free depression in the canopy in the distance. Soon, Mokou's house came into view.

It was a tiny, quaint-looking thing, somewhere between an old traditional-style house and a European cottage. The outside walls were a mix of shoji and wood, with a few windows in the wooden sections. There was an awning on the back, and a small porch out front. The roof was sloped, and a small chimney poked up from it.

It stood in the middle of a small clearing, and around it were scattered various signs of inhabitation. A line between two trees had a few articles of clothing drying on it. There was a pile of firewood along one side of the house, and nearby, a heavily-scored tree stump with an axe buried in it. A fire pit stood in the back, and around the edges of the clearing, a few persimmon trees stood.

It was... picturesque, I guess would be the word. It looked like it belonged on a cheap postcard.

There was nobody around, so I approached the door and knocked. "Miss Fujiwara? Are you home?"

No answer. "I'm, um, Sumireko Usami's granddaughter."

Still nothing. I knocked again. Nothing. I tried the knob, and while the door wasn't locked, a quick peek inside assured me that if anybody was in there, they weren't in sight.

"Maybe she's really dead...?" Maribel asked.

"Well, her body wasn't there, and she's supposed to be immortal..."

"Maybe she's sleeping. Being killed is probably pretty exhausting."

"Maybe." I knocked harder. There was no answer. I debated my next course of action for a moment, but we'd been through too much to leave empty-handed. Opening the door, I stepped inside.

The inside of the house was a bit less photogenic than the outside. Clothes were scattered on the floor, and tools were propped in some of the corners. The furniture looked like it had all been hand-made; hand-made _well_ , but the wood was left raw and unlacquered. I crept my way through the house until I found the bed. It was unmade, but nobody was in it.

I didn't want to trespass any farther, so after calling her name one last time, I made my way back out of the house.

"No luck?" Maribel asked.

"It doesn't look like she's in there..."

Maribel glanced back down the path. "Do you think I should go ask Kaguya to wait a bit longer?"

My mind flashed back to the previous evening, as I considered the possibility that we might have to find our way out of here without a guide. "That would probably be good, yeah."

She went. By the time she returned, I'd finished searching the grounds for any clue to where Mokou was, and taken a seat on the wood-chopping stump. At least, I think that's what it was used for. They show people chopping wood on stumps a lot in old-timey movies, don't they?

After twenty minutes of waiting, we started debating whether or not to give up and have Kaguya lead us out. Maribel briefly raised the idea of asking her for help, but it seemed like a hard sale to me. _Hey, judging by the way you beat somebody to death with a rock last night, you can hold your own in a fight. How do you feel about your odds against a meter-tall armored spider?_

We were still debating this when Mokou walked out of the brush.

Even though I'd seen her die barely twelve hours earlier, now, she looked mostly fine. There were some faint red lines on her face, like still-healing wounds, but it was a pretty damn good condition for somebody who should have been dead. She shot us a single look of disinterest. "... lost?"

Only then did I notice that she was carrying a rabbit.

It was a wild hare. Brown. Not like the ones in Eientei. Which was fortunate, because judging by the red stain along its side, it had been shot. Mokou had a bow slung over her other shoulder. I think it's safe to guess who had shot it.

"Oh, no," I said, and tried not to show my discomfort with the hare. "We were looking for you, actually. You're Fujiwara no Mokou, right?"

"Uh-huh." Mokou laid the rabbit out on the porch. "Don't touch that."

She stepped into the house, and Maribel and I exchanged uncertain glances. Seeing Mokou by day, she looked a bit scrawny. Sure, she'd done the flaming fist thing the night before, but she didn't really look like somebody who could take on one of those chimeras, let alone the Dark Thing. Kaguya had beaten her in a fight, and she didn't exactly act like a trained assassin. I wondered if my grandmother's trust had been misplaced.

Mokou stepped back outside, now holding a length of twine in her hand. She picked the hare up, and tied the twine around its hind legs as she walked. Unsure of what else to do, Maribel and I followed. She crouched down at the edge of the clearing and stepped on the end of the cord, holding it down. "It's obvious you want something," she said. "So you might as well say it."

"Oh, well. I am..."

Mokou lifted the hare by its head, pulling away from the rope to pull its skin taut, then scored a cut across its back.

I faltered. "A-ah, that is, my name is—"

Mokou dropped her knife and gripped the fur on either side of the cut, then pulled them apart, ripping the skin free and baring the muscle and bone beneath.

I averted my eyes. "My name is Renko Usami. I'm Sumireko Usami's granddaughter."

"Oh, Sumi?" For the first time, Mokou showed some interest. She looked back over her shoulder at me. "How's she doing these days?"

"Er, she disappeared almost fourteen years ago."

"... oh." Mokou seemed a little taken aback by this, and frowned thoughtfully. She kept peeling the rabbit's skin back, with a slightly disgusting tearing sound, until most of its body was bare. I'd never seen a freshly-killed animal in quite that condition before. It didn't look disgusting so much as... naked. Like some kind of freshly-hatched larva. "... fourteen years. I'm slipping. So you don't know where she's at?"

"I was five at the time, so... not really. Apparently she said something about going to explore another plane or something. Nobody's seen her since."

Mokou considered this, then nodded her approval. "Sounds like something she'd do, yeah."

Before I could respond, she grabbed the hare's head again, pulled the neck taut, slipped her knife through it, and decapitated the animal. The body fell to the ground, with what little blood hadn't already drained out oozing from its stump neck. "The thing is," I said, trying again not to look toward her.

Mokou grabbed one of the hare's ankles and snapped it. It was a sickening crack-pop sound. I flinched. "The, uh, the thing is..."

Another ankle. I felt my stomach tense up in preparation to leap out through my mouth. "I'm in a bit of trouble."

Another ankle. I swallowed to keep my breakfast on the inside. My only consolation was that there was only one more left. "And grandma said that you might be able to."

One last pop. I allowed myself to relax.

"Yeah?" Mokou said. She yanked at the fur, pulling it—and by extension, all four of the rabbit's feet—off. She hurled this into the forest, then plunged a knife into the creature's stomach and dragged it down. Its guts spilled out.

"To help," I finished, past my gagging.

Mokou sliced the guts off, then hurled them into the forest. Her hands were bloody now, but she wiped them on her pants. Start to finish, the process had barely taken thirty seconds. I gather that she was an expert at it. Gathering up the headless, skinless, gutless, footless hare, she stood and gave me a skeptical look, then glanced to Maribel, who was facing the other direction altogether with her hand over her mouth. "And who's this?"

"This is, um, Maribel Hearn—" I took my time to pronounce her name as well as I could, "—my associate. She's the vice president of the Sealing Club. Like the one grandma founded."

Mokou gave a disinterested grunt and carried her vaguely rabbit-shaped meat chunk toward the back of the house. I followed. "And Sumi said I'd help you, huh?" she said.

"Yes. There's a letter..." I patted my my bag, searching for it, and tried to remember what all it had said about dealing with Mokou.

"Help you with _what_?"

"There are these monsters... we think Merry—er, Maribel, that is—somehow brought them here, or created them by accident. At least one of them has tried attacking us directly."

"What kind of monsters?"

"Some of them are weird genetic hybrids. Er, that is, a gorilla with a tiger's head. Things like that. There's also some kind of giant spider thing that can hide in shadows, and... a monster that opens eye-filled holes in mirrors or something."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

I did have to admit, it sounded pretty dumb when I put it like that.

"It's true!" Maribel said, and hiked up her skirt, showing off the bandages on her thigh. "This is from the spider one. It nearly killed us."

"It attacked us outside of my house, and nearly beat the door down trying to kill us. We... think they're hunting us. Us in particular, I mean."

"Huh." Mokou sat down at the edge of her fire pit. It already had a pile of bamboo pieces, bark, and discarded tree limbs in it, and a flick of her fingers sent a tongue of flame streaking toward it. The spot where it landed burst into flames. She did it so casually, I almost didn't realize that I'd just seen a display of a superhuman ability. As the fire spread, she shoved a pre-sharpened stick through the skinned hare and draped it across the pit, dangling the meat just above the growing fire. "So let's say I believe any of this. What do you expect me to do about it?"

"I know it's a big imposition, but we were hoping you might be able to protect us until we can figure out how to get rid of them," Maribel said.

"Protect you. In the outside world?"

"Um, yes."

"For who knows how long."

"... yes."

Mokou gave us another look of disbelief and turned her meat over. "And Sumireko told you that I'd just say yes to that, no questions asked?"

"Well, she listed a few people on there, but. She said that you..." I faltered, as I realized that what I said next was going to sound very silly. Because it was. "She said that... you owe her some favors."

"Some favors."

"The letter was fifty years old," I said more quietly. "She didn't really go into specifics."

"... fifty? What year is it?"

"2069."

"Huh." Mokou poked at her meat a little, ignoring us for the moment. I could see that the heavy burden of 'some debts' at some point fifty years ago wasn't exactly weighing on her conscious.

"Look," I said. "Think of it this way. While you're outside, Merry and I will probably have to pay for your food, and you'll have free lodging in my apartment." Somewhere outside of Gensokyo, my bank account was crying in pain. "It will be like a free vacation!"

"Please, Miss Fujiwara," Maribel said. "We don't have anywhere else to turn, and we might die if you don't help us."

Mokou eyed the cooking rabbit, and I like to think she was weighing it against the promise of outside world food. She rested her elbows on her thighs and looked into the fire thoughtfully. "It's not like I've got anything better to do around here," she reasoned. "A decent look at the outside world might not be bad."

I stayed silent.

"Be a nice chance to get away from Kaguya for a while."

Again, I stayed silent. Crazed murderer or not, Kaguya had shown us a lot more hospitality than Mokou had so far.

"... I don't know about owing her anything, but if Sumi pops back up in a decade and finds out I let her granddaughter get killed, she'd be pretty pissed," Mokou reasoned out loud. She sighed. "If I said yes, there's something I'd want to do out there. Mount Fuji. Have you heard of it?"

"We... have, yes," I said, carefully. It sounded like some kind of weird trick question.

"Think we could go there?"

"Um," I said. This didn't seem like a good time to explain the Mount Fuji tourism industry to her. I really doubted that she knew what an ecological fee was, for starters. "Climbing season ends soon, but we can probably fit it in?"

"Can you, or can't you?"

"... we can, yes." I'd skip classes if I needed to.

Mokou pondered over this. She pulled her rabbit from the fire and inspected it. It had been charred to a crisp along the outside, and the flesh was still crackling and bubbling with juices. She seemed satisfied. Without waiting for it to cool down, she bit into it, pulling a strip of meat right off the ribcage with her teeth.

"You get me to Fuji," she said, before she was quite finished chewing, "and agree to bring me back here when you're done with me, and you've got yourself a deal."

"Oh. Oh, um, wow. Do you need to check your calendar, or...?"

She scoffed at me across her chunk of half-burnt hare. "Kid, I'm immortal. I have a few billion years of free time to work with."

"Oh. Right."

"How long before you need to leave?"

Her completely casual, almost disinterested, acceptance barely even felt real. I guess that when you're immortal, you can afford to take things as they come. I mean, it's not like she was going to die, right? "Preferably within a few hours."

"Great." Mokou took another big, juicy bite of hare, and stabbed the stick back into the ground. "I'll start packing."


	10. Chapter 7

Mokou didn't take long to get ready. She let us wait in her house while she packed, and the process made it clear just how little she owned. She laid a sack on her table, and into it went whatever she thought would be necessary for a few weeks spent outside of Gensokyo. A stack of papers. A pot of ink. A knife. A kiseru, with a small bag that I guessed was for tobacco. A pouch of coins. Half a dozen changes of clothes, heaped into two stacks. A few assorted smaller jars and bags. I didn't know what half of this was for, but I stayed quiet and let her be the judge of what would be useful. She was the thirteen hundred year old youkai hunter here. I figured that she knew her business.

When she was packed, she made one last lap around her house to check it for anything that couldn't last for a few weeks without her. With that, we helped her pull the storm shutters into place, and with her house now sealed up tight, we headed back toward the barrier.

Mokou told us that she knew a path out, a naturally-occurring weakness in the barrier. So, we let her lead, down the narrow path back to the main road. Kaguya was no longer waiting there. I guessed that she'd decided we were safe and gone home. Taken in a straight line, without any looping back on ourselves, it took about an hour and a half to get back to the boundary. An hour and a half. If it had been so painless the day before, we could have collected Mokou and left before sunset.

Mokou looked anxiously back over her shoulder a few times as we walked. Once or twice, she held up her hand to signal us to stop and just waited, listening to the wind. This didn't help my nerves, let me tell you.

This time, going out through Mokou's 'natural' exit, there was no sharp transition, like with Maribel's portals. Maribel pointed out the boundary as we approached it, but she described it as hazy in this area. Not so much a line as a smooth transition. We walked through the bamboo forest, and the outside world just sort of crept back in. I didn't even realize it had happened until I heard the sound of a car on the road below. With that trigger, everything else rushed in. The same mundane scenery—wind farm in the distance, houses below, trash peppering the forest floor—returned.

"We're out now, aren't we?"

"We've been out for a few minutes," Mokou said. She stepped forward to look out over the scene, with her hands stuffed in her pockets. "Tch. This end of the barrier is a dump. At least there's a city closer to the shrine."

"You've been out before...?"

"A few times. Once or twice with Sumi. Not enough to learn how things out here work anymore."

"Hmm." Maribel moved to stand next to her, and gave the landscape an approving nod. "We really did just walk out, didn't we? Is that even safe?"

"They made it like that on purpose. Think of it like a bug trap. You've got little holes, and the bugs fly in, right? Then they can't get out, because the hole's too tiny to find again unless you know where it's at."

"Er, right..."

"That's Gensokyo. Humans're the flies."

"... oh."

I was suddenly very glad that we'd found the two of them before those youkai we'd heard had found us.

We stood there, looking out at the scenery for a few minutes. Personally, after the weird sights of the bamboo forest, such a sharp transition was surreal. Seconds earlier, I'd been in a world where hunting packs of youkai roamed the landscape, with a hidden mansion where a moon princess lived. Yet, here I was, once again standing two meters from a half-buried McDonald's wrapper, looking out at prefab suburbs.

Before I could voice my thoughts—and trust me, they would have been really profound—a loud snap came from the forest behind us, just over the swell of the hill. All of us heard it. I tensed up. Maribel jerked to attention, and Mokou turned toward it, pulling one hand from her pocket and clenching her fingers like she was trying to limber them up.

"Do you think something followed us...?" Maribel said.

"Probably just a deer or something," Mokou said. She didn't sound convinced.

The sound stopped. I held my breath and waited.

"... I'm going to check it out," Mokou said.

She crept toward the source of the noise. Maribel and I took a few steps back. I reached into my bag, and my fingers worried at the pistol's grip. Another twig-snapping sound came from over the hillside. Mokou clenched her hand into a fist, and fire wreathed it. It was now obvious that the sounds were coming from the other side of one of the few large trees around. Mokou approached it...

And Kaguya stepped out from behind it. "If I'm 'probably just a deer,' don't you think you're overreacting?"

"What in the hell are you doing here?!" Mokou exploded. I don't mean that figuratively. I mean that her body burst into flames as she stepped closer.

Kaguya didn't look intimidated in the slightest. "I was just looking out for these two," she said, and gave us a friendly wave past the flaming Mokou. "I wanted to make sure you got them outside safely."

"I think I know how to escort two teenagers on a daytime hike, _princess_."

"I'm sure you can," Kaguya said, in a voice that was too genuine to describe as sarcastic. Somehow, that only made the sarcasm even more cutting. "But I have my own obligation to their safety."

"Well, they're safe. Good job. Now get the hell out of here."

Kaguya, though, wasn't listening. She stepped past Mokou and looked down over the houses below. "Oh, we really are in the outside world, aren't we?"

"Yeah, we are. Guess you didn't eavesdrop on that part, huh?"

"I hadn't known that there was a hole nearb—"

Kaguya was cut off, as Mokou grabbed the back of her robe. In a single motion, she yanked Kaguya backward and gave her a shove toward the direction we'd come from. "Well, there is! Why don't you go wander back through it? Or get eaten by a bear, whichever."

I didn't bother to tell her that bears hadn't been endemic to this area for decades. I did step closer, though. "It isn't a problem, we have some time to walk her back."

"Right...!" Maribel hurried up alongside me. "It isn't a problem, so please don't hurt her. The boundary's right here, I could open a hole in it..."

"Don't apologize for her!" Mokou said. "This is what she's like! Just drifting around, doing whatever she wants, causing problems for everyone else and never taking responsibility for it!"

Kaguya maintained that same placid expression. "You said that you needed Mokou's help with fighting monsters, right?" She was addressing us, not Mokou. Or rather, she was addressing Maribel.

"Oh, um." Maribel glanced anxiously between the two. "Well, I did, yes."

"Then after some consideration, I'd like to offer my services too."

Mokou leaned in, shouting at Kaguya from centimeters away. "You can't just _barge in here_...!"

"I'm not 'barging'..."

"... and invite yourself along!"

"... I'm offering."

"Whatever it is! I can handle this, you'd just get in my way!"

"Why don't you let them decide?"

They both looked to me.

I would have rather tried to defuse a bomb. "A-ah, well," I stammered. "More help would, of course, be welcome, but, uh, I wouldn't want to make things difficult for—"

"We'd be honored, Miss Houraisan," Maribel said, easing into the conversation in my stead. Thankfully. "But we really wouldn't want to impose..."

"It's not a problem at all," Kaguya said. "This Earth is my home now. It's about time that I saw more of it."

"But won't Eirin worry if you're gone for too long?"

"Eirin knows better than anybody that I'm immortal. She's very smart. She'll figure out where I went."

Mokou snorted. "You're actually thinking of bringing her, aren't you?"

"Ah, well," I said, in my most diplomatic voice. Which isn't very diplomatic. "We really could use all the help we can get."

"And judging by your performance in last night's fight, you might need the help, too," Kaguya said, with a sly glance to Mokou.

Mokou fumed and glanced between us, Kaguya, and the forest behind us, clearly weighing her options. I thought that she was about to tackle Kaguya then and there, really. She scowled. She crossed her arms.

We all stood in silence and waited for her verdict.

"How many of those monsters did you say there are?"

It wasn't the topic I was expecting, and the mental change of gears took a moment. "A few dozen. Two prominent ones."

Mokou gave a curt nod. "Then... then it's a competition. Whoever kills more wins."

"Oh?" Kaguya smiled at this, but raised one sleeve to obscure her lower face, peeking at Mokou over this. "And what does the winner get?"

" _When_ I win, you've got to do five requests for me." Mokou's face spread in a vicious grin as she spoke. "Impossible ones sound good."

"My, such high stakes."

"Yeah, it'd take a real asshole to ask for something like that, wouldn't it?"

"Then if I win, I'd like five requests from you, too. Reasonable ones, of course."

"Yeah, whatever." Mokou turned back to us. "If she comes, I'm not responsible for anything that happens."

"Duly noted," I said. I still, correctly, thought that this looked like a volatile and undesirable situation. Like juggling molotov cocktails. And yet, it was still better than the alternatives. "Um. Should we get moving, then?"

"Yes, please," Kaguya said. "I'm looking forward to my first look at the outside world."

* * *

Piled into the car, we looked like a strange group indeed: Kaguya and Mokou looked like weird cosplayers, and after trudging through the forest for the better part of a day with no shower, Maribel and I were in pretty sorry hygienic condition. I was glad that we'd be getting home around dark. Less likely to attract attention from my neighbors that way.

Putting Kaguya and Mokou in the back seat together seemed like a disaster, so we sat in a criss-cross pattern, with me in the driver's seat, Maribel in the rear passenger's seat, and the other two as far apart as the car's interior would let them be. It turned out to be unnecessary anyway. Kaguya's enthusiasm soon ebbed, as we discovered that she got carsick easily.

Like everything else she did, Kaguya got nauseous elegantly. She just sort of folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. If you weren't paying attention, you could even miss the way that she was occasionally swallowing to keep her bile down. It kept her quiet throughout the trip, and thankfully, she and Mokou seemed to be equally intent on ignoring each other's presence. Mokou curled her feet under her on the seat, sitting in a way that the seat belt designer would doubtlessly have not approved of, and stared out the window in disinterest.

Maribel and I were pretty exhausted by this point. So, the only real conversation was Mokou's occasional commentary on the situation, and my attempts to answer it.

"How fast does this thing go, anyway?"

"Up to two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour."

"Huh."

Later: "Why doesn't that one over there have anybody in it?"

I glanced out the window. "It's a long-distance freight truck. Its computer talks to satellites to find out where to go."

"Huh. A computer's like a phone, right? A box that thinks?"

"More or less, yes."

Later: "Too many foreign languages out here. I can't read half of this stuff."

Later: "What the hell is a 7-Eleven?"

"It's a store. They sell cheap food to travelers."

Later: "Is it supposed to be doing that?"

I looked down. In the center of the car's dash was a screen for the user interface. While the car was in motion, it was supposed to display an idling animation. Instead, it was filled with blackness, and eyes stared out from the within.

"Crap." I sunk back into my seat, away from the thing.

"What is...?" Behind me, Maribel leaned forward to peek between the seats, and gasped as she spotted it.

Soon, we were all looking at the thing. It had enough eyes to match us all, at least.

Now, seeing it closer, and more familiar with it, it was even more unsettling.

Imagine it this way:

A few years ago, there was a video going around, of a deep sea biology sub that spotted a surviving sperm whale. The whale was majestic, of course. A creature the size of a house, it filled most of the camera even at a distance.

Watching it, though, I was struck by something else. The whale was illuminated by the sub's lights. And past it: Nothing. The whale had been spotted two thousand meters below the sea. Beyond it was a darkness the human mind could barely comprehend. Four kilometers of water stretched below, an inky void that threatened to eternally swallow anything that entered. It made me feel small and insignificant in a way that no picture of a distant galaxy ever could. I understood then why humanity had always feared the sea.

Looking into that eye-filled void, I saw the same darkness. The darkness in that thing had _depth_.

"So what the hell is it?!" Mokou demanded.

"I think that's just a hole, but it's made by one of those things. We think." Maribel said.

"So there's a monster in there?"

"We've started calling it the Watcher. Something, um... came out of it the last time we saw it."

"Good, I can kill it now and—"

Mokou flicked her fingers, and a small flame burst into existence between them.

"No, don't!" I shouted.

"Open flame detected," the car announced, in a pleasantly neutral feminine voice. "Be advised that smoking in an enclosed vehicle is prohibited by—"

"Why the hell not?!" Mokou said.

"You'll break the car!"

"—of up to twelve thousand yen. Open flame detected, be—"

"If it keeps yelling at me, I'm okay with that!"

"It's a rental! I... really can't afford to pay for it. Please."

"—regulation, and punishable by a fine of up to—"

"Then how do you shut this thing up?!"

"Perhaps by _getting rid of the fire_ ," Kaguya said, from the back seat.

"... oh, right." With a flick of her wrist, Mokou dismissed the flame.

The eye-filled gap hadn't budged during this commotion.

"Anyway, if this thing's here, we might as well try doing something about it," Mokou said.

"It looks a little familiar," Kaguya said.

Mokou ignored her. "Give me a stick or something."

"A _stick_?"

Maribel dug in her purse for a second, then offered a pencil forward. "Will this work?"

"Yeah, sure." Mokou took the pencil in hand, and pinching it between two fingers, poked it at the screen.

The tip of the pencil pushed down... and past the point where the screen should be. At the spot where it intersected the surface of the gap, it was engulfed by darkness. It was like the pencil simply ended. "Huh."

The eyes in the void still stared straight forward, ignoring the pencil in their midst. I liked to think that meant that they couldn't actually see us, no matter what might be lurking on the other side.

"It isn't doing much," Mokou said. "Are you sure it's not just some spirit or something?"

"Whatever it is, isn't it a little concerning that it's following us around?" I said.

"If you can put things in it, though, it would be kind of convenient," Maribel said. "Like a second glove box."

"It's a pretty weird one, though. It would probably scare little kids."

"True. Maybe we could buy a few pairs of sunglasses for—"

Mokou's free hand had been fishing in the pocket of her pants. Now, she pulled out an ofuda and slammed it on the side of the screen.

With a loud sizzle, smoke burst out from the screen. The car started chastising us again. The gap evaporated in the blink of an eye, and the usual GPS readout and menu options appeared in its place. The pencil shattered with a crunch of splintering wood, with one half disappearing with the anomaly and the other staying in Mokou's hand.

"What _was_ that?" I said, waving aside the acrid smoke. A glance at the screen reassured me that she hadn't broken it.

"Youkai warding charm."

Maribel eyed the console. "Did you kill it?"

"You said that one wasn't the monster itself, right? I just stopped it from using its powers on the..." Mokou waved a finger vaguely toward the screen. "Whatever that thing is."

"Huh..." I grabbed the shattered half-pencil and poked at the tip with my finger.

Maribel put two and two together faster than I did. "So does that mean it's a youkai?"

"Huh?" Mokou looked back at her, then to the charm on the dash. Around this time, the car finally shut up about the smoke. "Oh. Yeah, I guess it is."

The anti-youkai charm clung to the dash, and stayed there for the rest of the ride.

* * *

Once we were back in the Kyoto area, I remembered a small hitch: I had no food. With everything else that was going on, it hadn't really been my top priority. What little I had in my apartment wasn't going to make much of a meal for four people. It was pretty late in the afternoon, too, so Maribel, Kaguya, and I were all pretty hungry. Mokou insisted that what she'd eaten of the hare earlier had been more than she'd eat most days, but reluctantly agreed to come along once it was clear that we were stopping for food anyway.

So, there we were, in a cafe a few kilometers from my apartment. The place isn't exactly glamorous. It's less of a date spot and more of a place for broke students to eat and study. I thought it would be a good choice in this case, for the following scientific reasons:

 ***** I thought the clientele of a place like that would be a bit less likely to raise a fuss about the fact that Maribel and I hadn't showered in a day, and we were traveling with two people who were dressed as, roughly, a Heian-era noblewoman and a firefighter. Well, okay, this being Kyoto, Kaguya's outfit might not have stood out as much. Mokou, though, was right out.

 ***** We were going to talk over dinner, and it was bound to be a very strange conversation. In a restaurant mostly full of college students, anybody who overheard us would assume we were talking about a video game or something.

 ***** I thought that giving Mokou and Kaguya fast food as their first dining experience in the outside world might be sort of like introducing them to modern cinema by showing them late-night anime. Jumping in on the very deep end.

 ***** And most importantly—it didn't cost much.

Money, I reflected, was going to be a problem.

Fortunately, I had plenty of time to think about it, since Mokou and Kaguya weren't familiar with 90% of the menu options.

"I'm afraid I don't understand this word," Kaguya said, tracing her finger across the menu.

Maribel leaned in and glanced at it. "Ah, um. That's 'hydrolyzed.'"

"I see. And this one?"

"That's 'protein.'"

"Food's food. Being picky about it just makes you look ungrateful," Mokou grumbled. Not that she was any quicker. She'd been scowling at the menu since we arrived, like she hoped to intimidate it into giving up its secrets.

Kaguya ignored her. "'Hydrolyzed soy protein'," she read. "Er, and what is that?"

Maribel looked to me for help.

I glanced down at the menu and searched for the item in question. _**Soy-Lemon Seafood Fillets**_ , the menu read. _Artisanal simulation seafood fillets (hydrolyzed soy protein concentrate), grilled and served with a sweet soy-lemon sauce. Garnished with ginger._

And I had to explain this to a girl who had just left, roughly, the Meiji era.

Right.

"Well," I said, as I gathered my thoughts. "A long time ago, people realized that they had caught so many fish that they were starting to wipe out some species." I watched Kaguya to make sure that she seemed to be following this. "And then, to make things worse, a lot of, um, chemicals and trash got into the ocean, and that killed a lot of them too."

She nodded along with this, thoughtfully.

"So a lot of fish aren't safe to eat, and a lot more are illegal to eat, because we want to let their populations recover. So, instead, people make artificial fish meat out of other things."

"Like soy?"

"Like soy."

"Then why is it called 'Seafood Fillets'?"

"I don't think 'Soy-Lemon Hydrolyzed Soy Protein Fillets' would sell very well..." Maribel said.

"They can't actually call it fish, for legal purposes," I said. "But 'seafood' is generic enough to be safe."

Kaguya nodded thoughtfully along with this, folding her hands in her lap. "I suppose you could say it is... arti- _fish_ -ial?" She somehow managed to maintain a perfectly level tone as she spoke, but still gave a self-satisfied smile at the delivery.

Maribel giggled. Mokou grumbled. It only spurred her on.

"What's wrong, Mokou? _Sardine_ -ly you can appreciate a joke?"

More grumbling.

"You can't blame me for taking the oppor- _tuna_ -ty to—"

"If she doesn't shut up, I'll kill her here and now," Mokou announced to nobody in particular. A few heads turned our way.

"Miss Houraisan," Maribel said, with a very affected gravitas. "I think it might be best if you _clam_ up."

She barely made it to the end of the sentence before she snorted and broke down in laughter. Kaguya joined her, shielding her face behind her sleeve as she tittered in amusement. Mokou growled and sunk down behind her menu.

Before long, thankfully, they made their choices and we ordered. While we were waiting, I remembered that I'd switched my phone off before we stepped into Gensokyo. Turning it on, I was instantly bombarded with notifications. For five minutes, I dug through automated ads, e-mails, system updates, notices from my school, and a repeated message of my fridge warning me that I was low on eggs. Finally, once the cruft was sorted away, I was able to look at the few messages I'd hanged on to. One was a statement from my bank. I stared at it and memorized my current balance. I felt like it was going to be a limiting factor in our activities to come.

The next message was a false positive, a spam message that managed to briefly convince me that it was a message from my mom. I trashed it, but reminded myself to call my parents within the next day or so. I was probably going to need to ask them for money soon. It wouldn't hurt to look like a dutiful daughter.

The third message was from a news filter I'd set up, informing me of a few articles that had been posted while we were in Gensokyo. There were quite a few in there, since I'd set it to look for injuries resulting from violence or unexplained causes. There was a rash of domestic violence stories, which I discarded. (In retrospect, I'm not sure they were actually unrelated.) A few stabbings and robberies gone wrong. I ignored these.

Two people in Kyoto had been hospitalized with injuries that looked like they'd been inflicted by animals. Both of them lived within three kilometers of the Kyoto University campus, and neither had seen their aggressors. The police were reporting this as 'wild dog attacks.' It seemed likely to be the work of chimeras, so I filed this away for future consideration.

And: A few photos that had been making the social media rounds. One was of a reptile the size of a man, with bird-like wings and horns like a ram, as it disappeared around the corner of a building. One was a blur of motion, but which clearly had meters-long segmented insect legs. One was a creature that looked almost like a normal lion, except for the patches of scales along its side. People had already settled on calling them 'Kyoto goblins,' and treated them like very elaborate hoaxes. There were already pages-long analyses detailing how the images had obviously been manipulated.

In a way, I was a little amused to see the birth of a new cryptid legend. I knew, though, what this actually meant—the chimeras were still out there, and they were on the move.

Finally, there was a series of messages from Yuuta. They started with him sounding hysterical over eyes in his television. The Watcher, I supposed. He swore that he'd seen something following him home one night. In the later messages, he sounded more and more paranoid.

It was worrying, but he lived entirely too far away for me to do anything about it tonight. I tossed off a quick message asking him to give me a call at his convenience and turned back to the others.

"So, I've been thinking. Merry and I both have class tomorrow."

"Mmhm, that's true," Maribel said. "I guess we can't go on playing adventurers forever..."

"The main time we got attacked was just walking home, though. The evidence we have so far suggests that the creatures are targeting us. For all we know, we could be attacked anytime."

"So, what," Mokou said. "You want us to play bodyguards?"

"I think it would be an interesting chance to see how outside world humans live, don't you?" Kaguya said.

"And _I_ think you're just looking for an excuse to stick your nose in other people's—"

Mokou went quiet, as the waitress approached and delivered the drinks: A coffee for me, tea for Kaguya, iced coffee for Maribel, and a glass of water for Mokou.

And, with them, the two sweets that had been ordered. Kaguya had gotten some kind of apple pastry that I'm pretty sure was only on the breakfast menu.

Maribel had gotten a massive sundae. I stared at it. "You're having _that_ with dinner?"

" _For_ dinner," she corrected me, as she popped a scoop of it into her mouth.

"Doesn't that seem a little childish?"

"Being this sweet requires me to maintain a strict diet."

"You're an inspiration to us all."

"Thank you." Maribel hummed to herself as she swiped the cherry from the top and ate it, then turned the conversation back to its prior topic. "So, bodyguards?"

"Oh, right. If we look at it like that, it's pretty convenient that Kaguya came along. With two of you and two of us, we can each have an escort in case we get attacked."

"And then you wouldn't have both of them living at your place..."

I'm glad Maribel said it, not me. My finances would look a lot less shaky if I was only supporting one extra person, instead of two.

"It'd keep us apart most of the time, right? I'm game." Mokou took a sip of her water, in a surprisingly refined fashion. "Any excuse to see as little of her as possible."

"Oh, you'll miss me when I'm gone," Kaguya said.

"Gone? You just keep popping back up no matter how many times I kill you. That's the _problem_."

"Well, Merry and I spend a lot of time together. Plus, if we need to track down the monsters, we'll have to spend a lot of time on that. The faster we kill them all, the sooner you can go home."

"I'm in no rush," Kaguya said. "I have an eternity, after all."

"If they're going to be our bodyguards, though..." Maribel turned to look over the two with a thoughtful frown. "They'll need to come to follow us around town, right? They might need to, um, fit in, won't they?"

It took a moment for me to realize what she was talking about. Their clothes. Coming to a cafe at off-hours was one thing, but I could just imagine the mess that would result if we'd taken Kaguya into a lecture hall dressed like that. "... right," I said. "Maybe we should make one more stop."

* * *

The stop, of course, was a clothing store. A _used_ clothing store, because neither Maribel or I could afford to buy a new wardrobe today. Used clothing stores are still considered a bit gauche in Kyoto, so we had to go into a pretty bad neighborhood to find one. Surveillance cameras grew like parasites on the corners of buildings, and police drones glided overhead. I guess it was a nice test of our trust in Kaguya and Mokou. If they couldn't even handle a mugger or something, there was no way they were going to take out a chimera.

Regardless, if they realized that it was a bad neighborhood, they didn't show it. I think they were mostly just fascinated by the drones.

Thankfully, low property prices and college students go hand in hand, so the store had a pretty nice selection. Kaguya seemed excited about the possibilities that outside world fashion offered. Mokou... was less so.

The end result:

Kaguya was dressed in a black skirt, with a matching vest over a white blouse. On most people, I like to think that the outfit would have looked classy. On her, they just looked... wrong. Like when you see a celebrity in the tabloids, wearing frumpy clothes in an attempt to lay low from the paparazzi. Used clothes stores were simply not equipped to handle the majesty that was Kaguya Houraisan.

Mokou was even harder to dress, if only because nothing really seemed to combine stylishly with white hair. If she was going to be fighting, she also insisted on an outfit that was easy to move in. So, she got jeans and a faux-distressed t-shirt with the English text 'CRUSH DRAGON FRESH' on the front. This bewildered me enough that I had to look it up afterward: Apparently it's a micropunk folk band from Shizuoka. I just saved you from having to listen to the song that plays on their homepage. _You're welcome._

Altogether, we got about four outfits apiece for them. It wasn't going to last long, but it seemed like a waste to spend too much money on clothes when they'd hopefully be going back to Gensokyo soon.

We'd never decided which of the two would be guarding which of us, but it seemed like an easy enough choice: Mokou should come with me, since the whole reason she was here was her debt to my grandma. Besides, Maribel and Kaguya seemed to be hitting it off. I was a little jealous, actually. Maribel had never really had any other friends in the entire time that I'd known her. Sharing her attention with somebody else didn't come naturally.

After dropping Kaguya and Maribel off at Maribel's apartment, Mokou and I proceeded to mine. First finding: it was in exactly as bad of a condition as I'd left it. Somebody had nailed a piece of plywood over the shredded area of my door, and left a note on the table from the landlady informing me that a replacement door wouldn't be available until the end of the week. Our barricade against the Dark Thing had made a giant mess of the place, and our rush to pack afterward hadn't helped much. If anything, the inside looked even worse than the door.

I normally would have been embarrassed about having company over with my apartment in such a condition. Under the circumstances, I just shoved the pile of supplies on my table aside so that we had somewhere to sit our drinks. Cleaning could wait until later.

As soon as we were inside and I was certain that Mokou wasn't going to pick a fight with my apartment's computer (she was very suspicious when it greeted us), I took a shower. My first shower since Friday. It was glorious. I invite anybody who pines for the simpler days of humanity to spend a weekend without modern conveniences. Our ancestors created indoor plumbing for a good reason. Please respect their wishes.

When I left the bathroom, I was feeling about a thousand times better. Dressed in clean clothes for the first time in days, I stepped into my room, blow-drying my hair, and fumbled a gesture until the apartment finally picked up on it and turned on the lights. My room, thankfully, was pretty much the only part of the apartment that hadn't been affected by the disaster. It was nice, being back in familiar surroundings that didn't show any sign of the trouble we'd gotten ourselves into. It made me feel safe.

I had almost convinced myself that our lives were no longer in danger. I was wrong.


	11. Entity File 10: Kaguya Houraisan

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #10  
Kaguya Houraisan**

 **Type:** Human (Lunarian?)  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Immortality. Manipulation of eternity and the instantaneous. Projection of energy.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Results of Hourai Elixir (immortality), innate (others).  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** n/a  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Possibly imprisonment.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human.  
 **Size:** Human.  
 **Other Notes:** Just to get this out of the way up front, yes, Kaguya is the Princess Kaguya from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. However, the folktale gets a lot of the details wrong.

Kaguya was born as a princess in the royal family of the moon. At her request, Eirin Yagokoro (Entity file not yet written) created the Hourai Elixir, a perfect immortality elixir. Kaguya consumed it, and since this broke the taboos of her society, she was banished to Earth. They later attempted to bring her back to the moon, but Kaguya preferred life on Earth, and settled down in a manor named Eientei, in the area that is now Gensokyo.

The immortality granted by the Hourai Elixir is conceptually flawless. She helped create it with her powers of eternity, and accordingly, it makes its imbibers into eternal beings. They're not only immune to bodily harm, but they're removed from even the idea of mortality. There are no known conditions under which they may cease to exist, so the people who have consumed the Hourai Elixir will probably be the last things remaining in this universe. Truly an existentially terrifying fate.

Under normal circumstances, if a Hourai immortal is murdered, they will die for a short time and then resurrect. If they're injured, the injury will usually heal in a matter of hours or days. Using her eternity powers, however, Kaguya is able to accelerate this process, healing almost any injury instantly. The only exceptions seem to be those injuries that incapacitate her, leaving her unable to bring her abilities to bear.

Kaguya's ability to control eternity is hard to define, though. At the most basic level, she understands better than anybody else just how inconceivably long eternity is, which is probably an advantage by itself for an immortal. As demonstrated by her part in the creation of the Hourai Elixir, she can probably imbue objects with an eternal nature, although I'm not quite sure what that does in practice. At its most extreme, as she describes it, eternity is the absence of change. She says that she made Eientei eternal for much of its existence, and during this period, the manor and the residents within didn't change, nor did they interact with the outside world. This could also be described as the power to defeat entropy, but at what cost?

As for her ability to control the instantaneous, she's described it to me four times, and I still don't really understand. I asked her if it means that she can perform actions that only take one Planck interval (5.39e-44 seconds) to complete, and her answer was ambivalent, but amused. She has confirmed, however, that she can pass an eternity in an instant. I believe this is the source of her ability to heal instantly. That would imply she's lived for multiple eternities, which raises many questions that are beyond the scope of this file.


	12. Chapter 8

Life with immortal bodyguards turned out to be less weird than expected.

It was kind of like having a roommate, really. A roommate who was curious about everything but trying to maintain an aloof detachment. A roommate who needed to be shown how to do simple things like get a cup of water or turn off the lights. A roommate who'd never encountered television, video games, or the internet before, and had no idea how to fill her free time.

Okay, a pretty strange roommate, but still.

The first night, I walked Mokou through the basics of modern living, showing her how to operate the household's essential fixtures and appliances while she complained that they over-complicated matters. Afterward, we relaxed for a while before bed, and she told me stories about my grandmother's time in Gensokyo. A few of them, I'd heard before. Most were completely new to me. Mokou talked about youkai and ghosts the way I might talk about spam mail or bad weather—an annoyance, but nothing that merited any real concern.

I had class the next day, and Mokou escorted me. I'd been worried that she might talk to somebody and accidentally make it clear just how weird she was. That turned out to be an entirely unfounded fear, because it would require Mokou to talk to people. She didn't seem big on that.

Mokou seemed, if not _amenable_ to boredom, accustomed to it. So, every day, she'd follow me to class. If it was a big lecture, she could come in and sit with me. For smaller classes and labs, she had to wait outside. It didn't seem to make much difference to her. Either way, she waited patiently, watching the proceedings with a detached curiosity.

No more monsters attacked us. Nothing watched us from the shadows. By the end of the second day, I was starting to wonder if we hadn't overreacted. Maybe we'd just had the bad luck to encounter a couple of the monsters back-to-back, and they weren't targeting us after all. Maybe they'd gotten bored and wandered off, or evaporated in the sunlight, or whatever it was that happened to superfluous monsters.

We were in a break between classes when I was proven wrong.

At the outdoor dining area of a fast food joint, more precisely. With one hand, I was leafing through my notes, preparing for a pop quiz that I suspected my upcoming Quantum Field Theory class would hold. With the other, I was stuffing my face with a monstrosity known as the Maple-Poblano Gyro Dog, a shining example of the benefits of cross-cultural culinary exchange.

Mokou was sprawled in a chair, with her lit kiseru in her hand. Did you know that as of 2066, less than 2.8% of the 18-25 demographic smokes? It made her stand out on the campus, and people commented on it a few times. It was practically the only luxury she seemed to partake in, though, so I wasn't about to deprive her of it. She was sneaking the occasional peek at my book, but mostly watching the crowd. Watching the crowd, and providing occasional commentary. In retrospect, I'm not sure how she avoided getting into a fight.

"Why's that guy have horns?"

I only briefly glanced up. "They're subdermal implants. Just two lumps of silicon pushed under his skin."

She took a long draw from her pipe as she considered this. "And that doesn't bother anybody?"

"It bothers lots of people. Like my mother."

"I thought he was possessed or something. Almost attacked him."

"Please don't attack people," I said distractedly, as I flicked through a few pages trying to find my notes on non-scalar condensates.

"I said _almost_."

Before I could come up with a response to that, my phone buzzed, and a few notifications cascaded down the screen. I picked it up and checked. They were all messages from Yuuta.

I opened the first one, and was met with a photograph of an eye-filled gap, staring out of a television screen. The Watcher, of course.

* * *

 **Log pulled from the phone of Renko Usami – 8/28/2069**

 **12:16:22 Yuuta Ishimori:** Do you see this?  
 **12:16:27 Yuuta Ishimori:** This thing has been following me for days now.  
 **12:16:37 Yuuta Ishimori:** When do you plan to do something about it?  
 **12:16:51 Renko Usami:** I did tell you to contact us about it on Sunday.  
 **12:17:07 Yuuta Ishimori:** I had a show last night, and preparations the night beforehand. My job doesn't solely consist of showing up onstage the night of the act and reading people's minds, you know.  
 **12:17:22 Renko Usami:** Could've fooled me.  
 **12:17:32 Renko Usami:** Has it done anything?  
 **12:17:45 Yuuta Ishimori:** I got home this morning, and I heard something moving in my apartment.  
 **12:17:54 Yuuta Ishimori:** I went to look, and it was there, in my bedroom mirror.  
 **12:18:01 Yuuta Ishimori:** Whatever is on the other side of that thing, I think it came through into my apartment, and ran away when it heard me enter.  
 **12:18:17 Renko Usami:** That does sound bad. Is it still there?  
 **12:18:20 Yuuta Ishimori:** Yes.  
 **12:18:24 Yuuta Ishimori:** It hasn't left.  
 **12:18:29 Yuuta Ishimori:** If you don't come today, I'm staying in a hotel tonight. I don't feel safe here.  
 **12:18:36 Renko Usami:** Probably not a bad idea, but I doubt that would stop it. Where do you live?

* * *

He sent over his address. It was in Okayama. Not exactly a day trip, but far enough that I'd need to skip my next class if we were going there. Begrudgingly, I agreed to swing by.

I finished up the exchange, and only then realized that Mokou had been watching me across the table. "I got a message from the... guy who started this whole thing," I explained, for lack of a better phrase to refer to Yuuta. "That eye thing is following him around."

"Huh." She leaned back in her chair and gave her pipe a flick, dumping the now-burnt tobacco out onto the ground. A littering fee for sure, if anybody had seen. I'd have to talk to her about that later. "Not good, huh?"

"Not good, no." I shoved the last of my food into my mouth, and my belongings into my bag. "Come on, we're going on a trip."

* * *

Going to Okayama was a nice change of pace, because it meant that we didn't need to take the car. I still did have it reserved for a while, since I knew we'd need to drive Mokou and Kaguya back to Gensokyo sooner or later, but the carbon surcharge was going to be killer if we used it for much else. So, we took the train. The 3:30 into Okayama was pretty empty... which was good, because we'd brought along one surly immortal, and one immortal who found the whole thing fascinating for all the wrong reasons.

"How fast are we going, do you think?" Kaguya asked.

I looked out the window and tried to judge our speed, even though I already knew the answer. "The New Sanyo line goes 480 kilometers per hour for most of its length. It's a bit old-fashioned." As shown by the fact that it _had_ actual windows.

"Is that so?" Kaguya said, and stroked her fingers thoughtfully over the seat. "I haven't been on a train in centuries."

"You've ridden a train before?" Maribel asked.

It was quite obviously the reaction that Kaguya had been wanting. "Oh, yes! The ones in the Lunar Capital are completely silent, though. The starts and stops are much gentler, as well. They say that if the rails ran from the Moon to the Earth, a round trip would take a bit less than twenty hours."

"And they run on butterfly farts, and they make little kids stop crying when they pass," Mokou added mockingly, from her spot across the carriage. She was looking out the window, doing her best to ignore the conversation. Her best wasn't very good.

"I'm simply stating facts, Mokou. The moon has had trains for thousands of years longer than Earth. There's no shame in the ones here being less advanced."

Mokou grumbled a response that I couldn't make out. I was glad, since some of the other passengers were already giving us weird looks.

The rest of the short trip passed in relative peace, with me trying to get Kaguya to talk more about Lunar technology and their understanding of physics. Her answers were mostly that I'd have to ask Eirin if I wanted to talk about that kind of thing. It was disappointing, but I guess most earthlings couldn't explain quantum chromodynamics or how a train works, either.

We had to change trains a couple of times to get to the right area of Okayama. Once we were on foot, finding Yuuta's apartment didn't take long, since I'd memorized the coordinates. It was an apartment building that looked a bit tidier than the others around us. No parking, no windows, no name plates, and sturdy-looking electric lock doors... kind of upscale, but the kind of place for somebody who just wanted a private living space with absolutely minimal involvement with the community around them. A truly modern apartment.

Even from afar, Yuuta's wasn't hard to pick out. The door was flanked by four knee-high statues—One hooded mystic, bent over a table. One dragon, in the Western style, sitting atop what looked like a pile of treasure. And, one gargoyle. It looked like some kind of half-assed wizard sanctum. There could be no question that this was Yuuta Ishimori's apartment.

We approached, and I let Maribel take the lead. She knocked on the door. "Mister Ishimori, we're here."

We waited. There was no answer from within. She knocked again. "Mister Ishimori?"

Nothing. "Maybe he stepped out," I said, already pulling my phone out. I shot off a quick text— _We're at your place. Where are you?_ —to him.

And we all paused, as inside the apartment, we could just barely hear the chime of his phone announcing that it had a new message.

"Um, Mister Ishimori?" Maribel banged on the door. I called his phone, and let it ring for about ten seconds, listening to it scream for attention through the door.

It didn't sound like anything was moving inside.

"What do we do?" Maribel said, looking over the door. It had no knob or markings on the outside, only a small indentation to wave a keycard to unlock it. Without that, we weren't getting anywhere.

"That guy's probably in trouble and he's not answering the door, right?" Mokou said, sounding like her patience was wearing thin.

"Well, yes," I said.

"Then kick the door down."

"It's pretty tough," I said, and gave the surface a rap to demonstrate.

Mokou frowned at it thoughtfully, then stepped forward, pulling one hand out of her pocket. She pressed her palm to the surface of the door, right over the indentation for the card reader. A jet of white-hot flame shot out. The plastic blackened and twisted beneath the heat, and the sharp scent of burnt plastic filled the air. The material shrank aside to reveal the metal mechanisms of the lock within, and the hole kept growing until we could see through to the other side. When she was satisfied, Mokou pushed her hand into the now-gaping hole and shoved the door aside. The locking mechanism was left hanging from the doorframe, dripping sizzling drops of molten plastic.

"Door's open," she announced.

I sighed. "Let's hurry up before somebody calls the cops, then."

It occurred to me that, after sneaking back into the theater, this was actually our second time trespassing within the past week. This incident was going to make a criminal out of me yet.

The inside of the apartment pretty quickly banished all doubt that it belonged to Yuuta. That hideous mask and garish cape were on a shelf by the door, along with what I assumed were supplies for his show—a few switches that looked like they might be remote pyrotechnics triggers, a wireless microphone, a suitcase for presumably holding it... pretty boring stuff. Moving on.

The rest of the place was a very good argument for the traveling psychic gig.

It was outfitted almost as expensively, if not as tastefully, as my parents' house. A television, a massive Kaleido-screen, hung on the same wall as the door. There was a leather couch (well, probably fake leather. I doubt he was _that_ rich) across from it, with a number of flyers for his shows hanging behind it. The oldest ones were faded black-and-white things, dated to the mid-2050s, and they grew in color and complexity until the newest ones, melodramatic things that showed him posing in front of billowing clouds of smoke.

A shelf, very purposely placed in the focus of the room's lighting, showed off an impressive collection of sci-fi paraphernalia. Mostly figurines of space ships or robots, smooth and detailed things without the grainy texture that I associated with bioplastic. After we got home, I looked up some prices and confirmed that Yuuta was either loaded or willing to spend a lot of his income on luxuries. It feels a bit weird referring to figurines of fictional space ships as 'luxuries,' but I'm not sure what other word you'd use. … 'vices,' maybe. The man had good taste in movies, I'll give him that much.

Along the back wall was an actual touchscreen terminal for the apartment's computer. Apparently they still do that in a few newer apartments. The screen was still active, and a quick check confirmed that he'd been around and using appliances barely two hours earlier. A flashing message onscreen informed me that the front door was broken, and I dismissed it.

Kaguya was the last one in, and she stood just inside the door, glancing around curiously. "What would you like us to do?"

"Use your own judgment," I said. "Look for signs of youkai activity, I guess?"

"Signs of youkai activity," Mokou repeated dryly.

"Any clues about whether youkai were involved in him disappearing, really."

"Like what?"

"Well, you're the youkai expert. How would you find youkai back in Gensokyo?"

"In a forest? A lot of ways. In a city? I dunno."

"You could try shouting, 'Free sake, come and get it,' I suppose," Kaguya said, her head tilted thoughtfully to the side.

"Just please look, okay? Try not to move anything, though. If this place gets investigated, I'd rather not have them find our fingerprints everywhere."

"Fine, fine."

We spread out through the apartment, looking over the contents for anything that might hint at what had happened here. I headed into the bedroom, which was even less restrained than the main room. Posters lined the walls, and the desk had a half-finished version of his mask, a chunk of some kind of plaster that he'd been carving details onto. Interesting to look at, but not much of a clue.

I'd just started looking under his bed when Kaguya shouted from across the apartment. "I think I might have found something!"

We all convened on her, in the bathroom. Seeing the scene, I had to fear the worst. There was a scorch mark along one wall, and a deep gouge in the wall behind the tub. The fire, I could at least explain as Yuuta's powers. The hole, however...

Maribel was crouched down and peering into the hole when I arrived. "This doesn't look like the kind of thing a person could do, does it?"

That hole was deep, and the material of the wall looked like it was pretty durable. If it had just been a crack, that would be one thing, but something had had both the force and cutting edge to pierce a hole in it wide enough for my hand to fit into.

"It looks like it's too high to be the spider one, doesn't it?"

"That makes sense, but..." Maribel glanced back to the hole. "If it was one of those monsters, wouldn't that mean it ran here all the way from Kyoto just to attack him?"

"Yeah..." I turned to look at the burnt marks on the wall. They were long, fanning out as they went, and seemed to originate from a point near the hole. Together, they almost told a story: Something had attacked Yuuta, and he'd used his fire abilities in self-defense.

Mokou crouched down and ran her fingers over the edge of the hole in the tub. "That doesn't seem so bad."

"Really?"

"Ever fought an oni?"

It took me a moment to realize that she was serious. "I wouldn't even know where to _lo_ _ok_ for—"

I stopped mid-sentence as a sound came from the direction of the main room—a loud thump. We all went silent, and my heart seized up in my chest. I was certain that somebody had just walked in to find us trespassing after melting the door lock. We could barely look more suspicious if we'd written 'BURGLAR' on our foreheads in marker.

"... there shouldn't be anyone else here, should there?" Kaguya said.

"No, um. There shouldn't," Maribel said.

"Well, sounds to me like there is," Mokou said. "I'm going to have a look. Stay here."

" _We_ will have a look," Kaguya corrected her, and smiled back to us.

The two crept back through the door. Mokou was in front, one clenched hand held in front of her and ready to attack, while Kaguya followed, looking a little silly as she tried to sneak in a sundress. They'd barely gone half a dozen steps when Mokou drew to a stop. Staring into the main room, she said, "... I think you ought to see this."

Maribel and I followed after them, with Maribel lingering reluctantly behind me. As we approached, Mokou stepped out into the room, and Kaguya followed her.

We turned the corner. There, on Yuuta's massive television, was one of those eye-filled gaps.

Well, not just there. One was displayed on the console for the apartment's central control, too. And on a small mirror hanging by the doorway. Every reflective surface and screen in the room had the same vista of eyes staring out at us. You never realize just how many electronic screens there are in a modern apartment until they all grow eyes and stare into your soul.

And on the other side of the room, some kind of insect the size of a large dog was clinging to the spot where the wall met the ceiling. A chimera. It had iridescent wings like a butterfly, but its rear ended in a wicked stinger. We'd have to pass within a meter of the thing to get to the still-jammed door to the outside. I didn't even want to be in the same _building_ with it, let alone get that close.

At least it didn't seem to be paying us any attention.

"Doesn't look so bad," Mokou said, rolling her shoulders to limber up. "Let me guess, you're going to tell me to try not to break anything when I kill it."

"Just... try to keep the damage to a minimum, okay?" Living through this would only do us so much good if we got sent to prison on suspicion of kidnapping Yuuta, after all.

"It's not attacking yet...?" Maribel said, still lingering in the hallway behind us.

"It doesn't look like it..."

Kaguya cleared her throat, a purely symbolic gesture to announce her intention to speak. Stepping forward, she inclined her head to the television. "Hello. My name is Kaguya Houraisan. We've only met briefly, but I'm afraid that my friends believe that you're trying to hurt them. We don't mean you any harm, but if we have no choice, we will be forced to defend ourselves. Don't you think it would be better to settle this peacefully?"

She was trying to make peace with the monster that was spying on us through the eye-filled TV. It was a unique tactic, I had to give her that.

I stepped forward. "A-ah, um, yeah! I'm not sure where you really came from, but Merry and I are kind of scared of you, and we don't want to fight or anything. I mean, uh. I'd love to... talk to you? If you can. You're clearly a very interesting... creature."

"Idiots," Mokou muttered behind us.

There was no response from the thing. Standing in front of it, on a towering screen the size of a small car, the eye-filled void was absolutely terrifying. That sense of depth that I'd noticed before was unmistakable. Looking into the thing, it seemed to engulf my entire field of vision. Like that feeling you'd get if you were standing at the edge of a hundred-story building and looking down, feeling the distant tug of the ground below.

I glanced toward the door and wondered if it would be offended if I made a break for it.

Kaguya was apparently thinking the same thing. "If you have nothing to say to us, we will be taking our leave," she said.

In response, a massive, furry paw reached out of the television.

A head followed it, the leering, big-eyed, toothy face of one of those deep sea fish. The thing simply pushed right out of the screen, with the gap rippling around it from the disruption. Its foot settled on the floor, and the entire room shuddered. The chimera was huge, easily as tall as my armpits. That hideous face sat on what looked like a lion's body, with rough, bony patches on its joints.

It turned its weird fish eyes toward us and clicked its teeth together, taking a step closer. I stumbled backward. Mokou moved forward, putting herself between me and it. "You've got three seconds to say something before I attack that thing."

A clawed foot reached out of the television, as another chimera followed the first two. The bug-thing on the ceiling turned its beady black eyes toward us.

"Go for it...!"

"Right!"

Wings of fire blossomed behind Mokou, sending a wave of heat through the room, and she lunged forward. Maribel squealed and retreated toward the bathroom, and I was right behind her. I heard, but didn't see, the impact as Mokou hit the creature. There was a solid thump of fist on flesh, followed by a sizzle of burning fur.

Once we were out of the room, I peeked through the doorway. The newcomer chimera was now standing in the room, some kind of massive reptile with the legs and forelimbs of a preying mantis. It hissed and advanced on Mokou. She spun around, putting the entire force of her body into a punch... only to nearly step into a tight shotgun-blast spray of rainbow projectiles from Kaguya. Mokou flinched out of the way at the last second.

"Watch where you're shooting!"

"Perhaps you shouldn't get in my way."

The fish-lion chimera took advantage of her momentary distraction, lunging forward to bite down on Mokou's arm. Blood drooled out from the spots where those pointed teeth pierced her, but she didn't flinch for an instant. Instead, she just let out a groan of mixed rage and frustration, and her other fist slammed into the side of its head. The thing staggered back, with a pale white fluid leaking from some injury—I think she'd smashed its eye. Mokou's arm came free of its mouth, now glistening with blood. She didn't let it slow her down.

Another chimera, a massive, gorilla body with some kind of insect's head, a messy, many-parted chitinous mouth, stepped out of the television. Mokou made a single fiery swipe toward it to drive it back and put some distance between it and her.

Off to the side, Kaguya was keeping up her series of burst attacks against the mantis-lizard. The thing was driven back into the corner now, shrieking in range. Its forearms were raised, alternatively trying to scare her off and preparing to lunge toward her, only to be driven back. It was peppered in wounds, but still going quite strong. "Princess!" Mokou barked. "Kill the damn thing and stop playing with it! There's more of them coming!"

"I _am_ killing it!"

"Kill it..." Mokou forward around, both hands raised overhead. Her fists descended in a fiery arc, a single double-fisted blow that slammed down on the base of the fish-lion's head. There was a dull cracking sound, and it went limp and fell to the floor. "Faster!"

Of course, the all-out attack had left her defenses lowered, and she was rewarded by that bug thing landing on her back. Its hooked feet dug into her flesh, and it lunged forward, squeezing her neck between its pincers. Mokou stumbled forward with a growl, patting at her back until her fingers found a wing and gave it a firm twist, filling the air with a sickly crackling sound. The thing began thrashing on her back, and while she wrestled it, the gorilla-bug gave her an almost leisurely-looking backhand slap. Mokou tumbled across the floor, and slammed into the wall with enough force that I almost expected one of those cartoon holes to be left behind. A few cracks ran through the material, and she rebounded off with a grunt of pain.

Kaguya was still fighting off the mantis-lizard, carefully blasting it with sprays of bullets to keep it away, but leveled a hand at the massive insect as it fell from Mokou's back. A beam of pure white energy lanced out, blowing straight through the thing and scorching a line across the floor.

Around here, I became aware of a softer, pained sound running under the chaos of the battle. It took a moment for me to recognize that it was Maribel. She was pressed against the far wall, staring fearfully at the doorway and flinching with each loud sound of the battle beyond it.

"Hey, Merry, are you okay?"

She shot me a quick glance, and her eyes darted back to the doorway. "I can't... I don't know how you can be so calm right now."

I stepped across the hall, sliding in against her. "We'll be okay, alright? Mokou and Kaguya are handling it. They seem pretty tough."

(From the other room, I could very clearly hear Mokou and Kaguya resume their argument. "—was going to kill that one!" "I had it under control!" "It nearly took your head off! Just stay out of my way and let me handle this!")

"Y-yeah, I know. I just—" A loud crash of splintering metal and plastic. Maribel flinched down with a squeak. Her voice was even shakier when she continued. "I-it just reminds me of the other times... being chased by youkai... a-and the TORIFUNE..."

I wrapped an arm around her back and gave her a squeeze. "We survived all the other ones, right? You're not going to get hurt, I promise."

"There's the action movie hero again." She gave me a weak smile and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Hey, being a weird monster hunter runs in my family, remember? I was probably born for this kind of th—"

I was cut off by a heavy thump on the wall behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I found a black hand, nearly the size of a volleyball, gripping the door frame. The gorilla-bug chimera leaned forward through the doorway, and for a second, I could see myself reflected hundreds of times in its compound eyes.

I screamed. Maribel screamed. We continued screaming as we scrambled backward, just as a fist the size of my head smashed into the wall where we'd been standing seconds ago. Maribel and I sprinted down the hall, and the monster shrugged down, twisting side to side to cram its broad shoulders through the doorway behind us.

The only place to flee to was the bathroom, and we ducked in and slammed the door behind us. The chimera's lumbering footsteps came down the hall after us, and its fist blew through the door like a sledgehammer through wet newspaper. Splinters flew through the air. It pulled its fist back through for another punch, leaving a hole big enough for a grown man's head to fit through.

"I thought you had that one?!" Mokou shouted from beyond the door.

"You _just_ said that you were handling it!"

Maribel and I climbed into the bathtub, as far from the door as we could get, as the chimera battered it open. It shoved its head through the hole in the middle and pushed inside, shrugging the scraps of ruined wood off its back. Maribel and I shrank back against the wall, with nowhere to run.

"Hey, asshole! Back here!"

A flash of fire lit the hallway, as Mokou blasted the thing with a white-hot tongue of fire.

The chimera's insect head let out a shriek. One fist slammed into the wall with enough force that I could feel the impact in my ribcage, and it began thrashing in pain.

I don't know if you've ever been locked up with a flaming gorilla, but let me tell you: _It is an experience._ Maribel yanked me down into the tub, and we cowered, our hands over the backs of our heads like it was an earthquake drill. It effectively _was_ an earthquake, as much as the floor shook under the injured creature's outburst of pain. It slammed an arm into the bathtub, and the whole thing rocked to the side with a shriek of tortured plumbing. The whole time, we could hear Kaguya and Mokou attacking the thing.

After what felt like an eternity, the chimera slumped down with a final floor-shaking thud. In the resulting silence, I was briefly, acutely aware that Maribel and I were both whimpering. I'd been certain that I was going to die, maybe even more so than during the encounter with the Dark Thing. My pulse was hammering so hard that I was afraid my heart might bruise a rib.

"Are you two okay?"

It was Kaguya's voice. Upon hearing it, I realized that we'd been safe for a good five or ten seconds, and I was still clinging to the floor of the bathtub like my life depended on it. Reluctantly, I released my death grip and sat up.

Start to finish, the entire thing in the bathroom had taken maybe thirty seconds, but it had certainly left its mark. The toilet had been smashed, and water was gushing up from the remnants of the tank, making a steadily growing puddle on the floor. There were basketball-sized dents in the wall where the chimera's fists had impacted. There was, of course, the rather mangled corpse of a dead chimera laying on the floor in the middle of the room. Oh, and the entire room smelled like what I assume was burnt gorilla hair. If you think that's trivial compared to everything else, you've never smelled a burning gorilla.

"Y-yeah," I said, unconvincingly.

"I think so," Maribel said.

"I think we got all of them," Mokou said. "Or all the ones that came out, at least."

"Right. Um. Good." I'm not sure what the LD50 of adrenaline is, but I felt like I was close to it. It was hard to focus on the conversation while my lizard brain was shrieking for me to run and hide. I brushed my hair back out of my face, and found that I had some pulverized drywall stuck to it with a warm fluid that I hoped was sweat, but was probably gorilla blood or toilet water. "Good work."

"Did it stop letting more of those things in?" Maribel asked. She looked like as much of a wreck as I felt. Her cheek had gotten scraped somewhere in the excitement, and the back of her dress had a few rips on it. We'd be getting some weird looks on the train ride home.

"It did when I smashed that thing," Mokou said.

"What thing?"

"The, uh. The big... phone... thing..."

"Television screen," Kaguya offered.

"Yeah. That."

My first instinct was to chastise her for causing such careless destruction, but, you know, considering the fact that the bathroom had just been remodeled by a gorilla, it didn't seem noteworthy by comparison.

"We should really get g—"

I trailed off, as motion from the edge of my vision caught my attention. The chimera corpse was... blurring. After a second, it started sublimating away, melting upward into a black mist.

Maribel edged backward. "What's going on...?"

"It's dissolving," Mokou said. "Most youkai do that when they die. Not many leave corpses."

It took a moment for that to connect with me. "... so these are youkai too?"

Mokou bent down and pulled a strip of paper from the rapidly-disintegrating body, then held it up. It was an ofuda, although a different type than she'd used on the screen in the car. "Youkai."

"Oh. Huh." I really wasn't in much of a mood to argue or think about the consequences of that. My adrenaline rush was ending, and with it, the realities of our situation were crashing down on me. "We... we need to get out of here. Somebody has to have heard all of that."

We made hurried plans to stick to the alleys on our way out, to make sure that we didn't leave any surveillance camera evidence of us visiting the recently-trashed apartment. The black mist from the dead chimera/youkai vanished up into the air, seeming to disappear as quickly as it had come. In our rush, I didn't notice that it was heaviest around Maribel. It seemed to gravitate to her before it vanished, like it was seeking her out in particular.

The defeated youkai were seeping back into their point of origin.


	13. Chapter 9

"Okay, so," I said. "We've figured out that the creatures attacking us are apparently youkai. What else?"

From across my living room, the other three sat in deep thought. Or so I would've liked to think, at least. Mokou and Kaguya were shooting each other occasional glares, despite sitting as far apart as the room would allow. Whatever working peace they'd made had been completely undone by the squabbling during the fight in Yuuta's apartment.

"Well..." Maribel said, after a few seconds had passed in silence. "We still think that I had something to do with it, right? I... brought them here with my powers, or they came out of my head, or, um."

"Right, good thinking." I turned to the blackboard that I'd propped up behind myself, and below the single bullet point of 'Youkai,' added 'Maribel's abilities.'

You would think that it would be hard to find a blackboard these days, but you haven't seen the university's maintenance storage rooms. I'm pretty sure that there supplies in there dating back to the 1800s.

The blackboard had been stop-gap measure. After the display at Yuuta's apartment, we weren't taking any chances. I'd unplugged every electronic screen in my apartment and draped towels over the mirrors, while Mokou mass-produced warding ofuda. Only once one had been slapped on every screen and mirror did we dare to use them again. I still thought it was best to be cautious, though. So. Blackboard it was.

"Where did they come from if they're youkai, though? The chimeras on TORIFUNE were actual animals, right?"

"Hmm, that's true."

"Since the one in the mirror was able to summon the others, it would seem like they're cooperating, don't you think?" Kaguya said. "Or the one is controlling the others."

"That's a good point. Actually..." I added three new headings off to the side, for the Watcher, the Dark Thing, and the chimeras as a whole. Under the heading for the Watcher, I wrote, 'commanding the chimeras?'

"What in the hell is the 'Dark Thing'?" Mokou said, reading the board.

"Oh. It's that spider thing we told you about. We haven't really seen it since..." I frowned at the name on the board. "Maybe it just left?"

"It's kind of weird when you think about it, isn't it? The others still seem to be targeting us... and, um, Mister Ishimori." Maribel went quiet for a moment. Between Yuuta's disappearance and the evidence of a fight in his bathroom, we had every reason to believe that he was dead. She wasn't taking it well. "Why would one of them just leave while all the others stay behind?"

"Are you really going to worry about it if it's not hurting you?" Mokou said. "There are a lot of youkai out there already. Well, there used to be."

"But why..." I trailed off for a moment, as I jotted down that round of observations. "... are they trying to kill us in the first place?"

Mokou shrugged. "It's what youkai do."

"But why?"

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Youkai are born out of human belief. Usually fear. Get a bunch of people afraid of something for long enough, and it will make a youkai. Youkai feed on fear, too, so they have to attack humans to make sure humans _stay_ afraid of them."

"... huh. But why us, specifically?"

"Ehh. Hmm. Well... youkai need legends and things to keep them going, too. It's one thing to scare somebody and get enough fear for a day or two, but any youkai that sticks around for long, it's because there's a story about them. Once kids are whispering to each other about you every night before they go to bed, you've got a source of fear for life, right? So when you look at it that way, wouldn't it be better to pick a few humans and make their lives a living hell, so they'll be more likely to get scared enough to start telling people? Plus..." She leaned forward now, with a slightly vicious grin. "If you just scare somebody once, half of them will forget about it before long. If you scare the same people over and over, they'll spend all day jumping at shadows sooner or later. More return on your investment."

"So they're targeting us because we were already afraid of them...?" Maribel said.

"More or less."

"It's a reasonable theory," Kaguya conceded. She took great care to not look toward Mokou as she said it, like she was hoping to avoid implying any praise to Mokou. "It still wouldn't explain where they came from. Are modern humans really so frightened of... rabbits with the heads of chickens?"

"... was there a chimera like that?" Maribel asked.

"It was an example."

"Oh." Maribel looked slightly disappointed. "Well, um. I was already afraid of the chimeras. We think that I... did something with my boundary powers to, um, show people my fears, without really meaning to. I guess I kind of... created them?"

"You really think you created a bunch of youkai with your brain?" Mokou said.

"Apparently..."

"In her defense, she was hypnotized at the time," I said.

"Great."

"If it's like that," Kaguya said, in a very let's-change-the-subject tone, "It's more like they were already partially-formed youkai, and she just gave them the extra push they needed to become real. If youkai are born from fears, then every fear is an inchoate youkai, in a way."

"The hell does 'inchoate' mean?"

"'Partially formed,'" I said.

Mokou responded with a grunt.

"But," Kaguya continued, not to be deterred, "fears of what?"

"Well," I said. "Merry had nightmares and stuff about the chimeras after TORIFUNE. The chimeras we're fighting now could just be the manifestation of those fears."

"And the others? I'm guessing that Maribel doesn't have a fear of eyes, or, um."

"Giant spiders," Maribel said, with a sigh that suggested that she was a little ashamed of her subconscious for not having more respectable fears. "I'm not really afraid of spiders, no..."

Mokou waved this argument away with one hand. "Doesn't have to be spiders. Every youkai has to be shaped like _something_ , you know? Like, think about a kappa. That probably started off as, uh, the fear of drowning or something. But they used to look like turtle things. That doesn't mean anybody was scared of turtles."

I frowned at that. "They _used to_ look like turtles? Traditional youkai like that don't show in movies and stuff so much anymore, but all the ones I can think of still look like that."

"I mean the real ones. They look like pretty normal humans now. A lot of youkai are going that way."

"... oh."

"The point is, just because it looks like a spider doesn't mean it's the fear of spiders. You could be afraid of heights, or darkness, or something."

"The spider... that one did come out of the shadows before, right? And it doesn't seem to do much but attack people. The Watcher is a bit weirder, but maybe the Dark Thing is more like, um. Darkness, or violence, or something."

"I do..." Maribel trailed off, and squinted at something the other side of the room, then quickly turned her gaze back down to stare at her lap. I looked over, and didn't really see anything in the spot where she'd been looking. "U-um, I do think it might be something like that? A lot of my nightmares and things are about... being chased by monsters in the dark, after all."

"What about the Watcher? The fear of... being watched, I guess? Some kind of social anxiety thing, maybe."

Maribel shook her head. "I don't have social anxiety, Renko. I like to think I'm pretty good at..." She glanced to the side and squirmed, then looked back down to her lap. When she continued, she sounded distracted. "... ah, at talking to people, that is."

Again, I saw nothing noteworthy in the direction that Maribel had been looking. "Is something wrong?"

She tensed up, like a kid who had been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. "It's just... um. An episode."

"Huh?"

"You know." She rubbed a hand back through her hair, trying to look more collected than she actually was. "Seeing through boundaries."

"Oh."

Kaguya frowned with concern. "Is something wrong?"

"It's not really anything to worry about..." I turned back to Maribel. "Would it be better if we stopped for now? We can sit and wait it out."

She kept staring at her lap in silence, and for a moment, I thought she was going to say that she was fine, but instead she gave a weak smile. "Yeah, we probably should."

* * *

Over the year or so since she'd started seeing into other worlds regularly, I'd learned to deal with Maribel's 'incidents' about as well as anybody could. This might sound pretty obvious, but randomly glimpsing other planes of existence that nobody else can see is pretty stressful, it turns out. Maribel effectively had the most vivid hallucinations in all of human history.

For a given value of 'hallucination,' at least. When she was lucky, she only saw things that nobody else did. When she was unlucky, she got transported to other planes until the effect wore off.

Today she was lucky.

I led Maribel to my bedroom, moving slowly so that she could step around otherworldly obstacles that I couldn't even see. She settled uneasily onto my bed, and I took a seat next to her. I spent a few minutes watching to get a feeling for her condition. Like before, she was trying to stay calm, but her eyes were darting around the room, with no relation to its actual contents.

"So," I said. I think that talking helped keep her anchored to the real world during these episodes. "What's today's vacation spot like?"

"It's, um. I think it's some kind of hell."

"... oh."

"Y-yeah. Just a... big, empty field full of people stumbling through the snow and freezing to death."

"Sounds cheerful. … isn't there supposed to be a Buddhist hell like that?"

"A lot of them, I think." Maribel pulled her knees up to her chest, folded her arms atop them, and rested her forehead against her arms. It blocked most of her vision, which I guess was the important thing. It also made her look like she had a killer hangover.

"If the Buddhist hells are real, maybe I should take up meditation..."

"Yomi is real too, though. I've been there, remember?"

"Oh, right. I guess there's no hope for humans in a universe with so many hells."

She laughed weakly at the comment, and we fell silent for a while. I could tell that it wasn't quite so calming for Maribel, though. Every once in a while, she was flinching or looking up, and slowly, she was starting to shiver.

"Do you feel okay?" I asked.

"It's really cold..."

A year ago, I would have said that was impossible, and that there was no way Maribel could feel the chill when the air in the room hadn't changed temperature. Now... well, I'd learned to accept that Maribel could see into other realms. That already implied that light from them was reaching her eyes, and it wasn't like I had a good explanation for _that_ , either. In the time I'd known Maribel, I'd learned to accept whatever happened to her, no matter how unbelievable it was.

Somehow, it was easier to accept that everything I knew about physics was suspect than to assume that Maribel was lying.

"Here." I got up and grabbed a spare blanket from the shelf. Sitting back down, I draped it over Maribel's back. "How's that?"

"Better, thank you. Still a little cold, though..."

"I could grab another blanket if you want. I'd offer to turn on the heating, but if we do that in August, I might pass—" Maribel scooted closer and wrapped one arm around me, engulfing me under the blanket with her. "O-oh. That works too."

"It's warmer this way." She rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. For just a second, she had a lazy smile on her face. It soon melted, though. "I can still hear them screaming..."

"I might make a decent heater, but earplugs might be a bit beyond my capabilities."

"Yeah... Hey, Renko?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you considered that... Um, have you considered that one of us might die? Fighting these youkai, I mean. Mister Ishimori probably already did, and we nearly died to that chimera..."

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her in closer. She'd almost stopped shivering, at least. "That's why we have Kaguya and Mokou here. I'm sure they can handle anything that comes up."

"Mmhm..." She didn't seem convinced.

"It... kind of feels like we can't die, doesn't it? Not now, at least. We've learned about so much stuff, and we're only scratching the surface of the mysteries out there. If we died right now, it would be completely unfair. Even a cruel and uncaring universe with way too many hells wouldn't do that to us."

"Doesn't that sound like exactly the kind of thing somebody in a movie would say right before they died?"

"Does it?"

"It totally does."

"Well... if one of us dies, it should be me, anyway. I'll die doing what I love."

"Being eaten by gorillas with bug heads?"

"I was thinking 'investigating the unknown.'"

"That does sound a bit cooler..." Maribel sighed softly and let her eyes drift open, then flinched back and squeezed them shut again. "Still there. I looked up right in time to see somebody's arm crack and fall off."

"Take your time," I said. "I'll be here as long as you need."

* * *

Maribel's episode ended up lasting until late in the evening. By that time, we decided that she and Kaguya might as well stay at my place for the night. My apartment was big enough for four, but the sleeping arrangements were already tight, and we ended up with Maribel and I sharing my bed, Kaguya on the couch, and Mokou on... the floor. Mokou actually volunteered for this. Well, I say 'volunteered,' but in reality, she demanded the couch for just long enough to get into an argument with Kaguya over it. Mokou would probably argue over the chance to get hit in the head with a brick if she thought Kaguya wanted it, though. Reading between the lines, this was essentially the same as volunteering for the floor.

Several hours later, around two AM, I was woken by the sound of shouting in the main room.

I stumbled down the hallway, patting the wall for a light switch. I tried shouting for the computer to turn the lights on, but my throat was too hoarse. Flashes of orange-yellow light from the living room gave me brief glimpses of the hallway, and at the far end, I could hear the sounds of combat.

"The hell did it come from?!" Mokou shouted, somewhere in the darkness.

"Just fight them!" Kaguya's voice replied.

"All lights on!"

I finally managed to grunt out the three words in a halfway-intelligible manner, and every light in my apartment turned on. The sudden illumination blinded me, and I flinched back from it, blinking a few times to clear my eyes. As soon as I could almost see, I hurried forward to the end of the hall.

In the main room, Mokou and Kaguya were facing down a chimera, a horse-sized, stilt-legged insect of some sort with a grasping mouth filled with raspy teeth. … they couldn't all be winners, I suppose. There was already another one laying dead on the floor, a two-legged lizard (dinosaur?) dotted with urchin-like spines. It was already starting to melt into black mist like the one in Yuuta's bathroom.

And on my television: one of the Watcher's gaps. A long, blunt horn was already poking out of it, as another creature emerged. As the base of the horn pushed out, it became clear that whatever it was, it had the head of a rhinoceros.

Not something I wanted in my living room.

Mokou seemed to be dealing with the sudden light much better than I was. She was fighting in short, measured bursts of force against the chimera, thankfully taking care not to set my living room on fire. She spotted me across the room, even as she dodged a lunge from the creature "Get rid of that thing!" she shouted.

It took a second to realize she was referring to the Watcher. I didn't relish the thought of smashing my TV like the one in Yuuta's apartment, but I doubted turning it off would do anything. I was going to need one of Mokou's ofuda. I eased my way into the room, flinching at the occasional sound of one of the combatants landing a blow on the others, and trying not to think about the fact that I was moving _toward_ the rhino-monster that was pushing out of the TV.

I hurried past the fight and found Mokou's bag in its spot in the corner. I didn't have time to care about her privacy, so I dug through it, scattering the contents on the floor around me. A pot of ink, a brush, a stack of blank paper, her bag of tobacco, her folded clothes... finally, her ofuda slid out to the floor. There were a few varieties, and splayed out in front of me, I had no idea what any of them were for. I reached out to rifle through them, touched one...

Blazing pain erupted into my hand, and the entire world went white. My hand jerked back immediately, but the other effects were more pronounced. I folded limply to the floor, and my thoughts all came to a screeching halt. I will swear that, for just a second, my entire brain stem was shut down, and even my heart stopped beating. When my vision returned, it was a blurry, unclear view of the floor, which my face was now sandwiched up against with most of the weight of my body.

"Renko! What the hell are you doing?! You've got about three seconds before I smash this...!"

Mokou bit off the rest of that sentence, and I heard a series of thuds behind me, followed by the crash of my couch toppling over. It snapped me back to awareness, and I pushed away from the floor, with my hands only numbly cooperating. My vision blurred. My head felt like It felt like I was operating my entire body through a remote control with half of the buttons stuck. "Think I... t-touched the wrong one," I moaned.

"Princess! Go help her! Extermination is red, warding is blue!"

"'I-I've got it!" I shouted back, as my head reeled and my thoughts bubbled back into my head. I reached out to touch the ofuda again, thought better of it, and instead wrapped my hand with a pair of Mokou's pants like a glove. Let _those_ take the beating from them.

"W-what's going on?!" Maribel's voice came from the direction of the bedroom.

"Please stay back!" Kaguya said.

I found a blue ofuda, hesitated, and grabbed it with my pants-glove. Fortunately, it didn't make my hand feel like it was exploding this time. I turned and stumble-ran across the room, barely registering the scene—Mokou holding the chimera at a distance with a series of short, measured, brutal uppercuts; Kaguya standing behind her and carefully timing short laser-like bursts of energy so as to not hit Mokou; Maribel hurrying across the room toward me; and onscreen, the rhino thing squirming side to side to squeeze through my TV. Its massive front feet landed on the floor with enough weight to make the entire room shake, and now that it had that traction, it started moving more quickly.

And its eyes were turning toward me. I was going to have to approach that thing, but I was dedicated to my mission at this point. I probably looked like a sorry sight—hunched over, weaving like I was drunk, with the ofuda-holding hand hanging at my side and my other hand pushing against my knees for support. I could still barely feel my limbs, let alone control them with any grace. But I gritted my teeth and stumbled on. I couldn't hope to place the ofuda properly, so I instead just propelled my hand up with all the force I could muster and slapped it against the TV. It was enough to make the ofuda cling to it, though, and as I stumbled backward, it drifted down and laid flat against the frame.

The effect was instant. The gap, that pattern of eyes and darkness, recoiled away from the charm, in the same sense that the ground might be said to recoil from a crashing asteroid. In the areas it vacated, it revealed a late night infomercial. "... only the finest sand in our restoration efforts—because the beach should be as accommodating as we are," a woman's pleasantly neutral voice droned, as the darkness shrank into the edges of the screen.

The more impressive outcome was the effect this had on the chimera. The rhino-thing had managed to advance another meter, squeezing its midsection through the TV, tight enough that I was afraid it might break... and it was still there when the gap closed, leaving it a normal television screen. In the span of a second, the thing was split in two. It gave a thunderous, pained groan, like a collapsing building. Which is what it felt like. Even though it was pretty small for a rhino, it was pretty big to have collapse in your house. It slumped forward and crashed to the floor, shaking the apartment with such force that I could hear the dishes rattling in the kitchen.

My attention turned back to the fight for the first time in about thirty seconds. It looked like my couch had paid the ultimate price for its bravery, having been both toppled backward and thoroughly shredded at some point. The only surviving chimera was now backed into a corner, with Mokou's left arm buried in its leech-like mouth up to her elbow. With her right arm, she was pounding on it furiously. This seemed to be having about as much effect as hurling tennis balls at a tank.

"Did you get the thing?!" she shouted.

Kaguya was standing a few meters away from all of this, shifting anxiously as she tried to look for an opening to shoot it. (If I had to guess, I'd say that the only reason that the chimera had managed to bite Mokou is that she was staying close specifically to block Kaguya from shooting it to death.) Mokou's question apparently made sense to her, since she answered, "They handled it, yes."

"Good! Stand back!"

"What are you—?"

Before Kaguya could finish that sentence, the chimera _exploded_. I mean, literally. I had made a 'be careful with fire inside the apartment' rule days ago, but I'm pretty sure that she used a fireball to pull it off. Not that it mattered, since the fireball that she launched was from her hand that was buried in the chimera's mouth. One second, the chimera was there. The next, it burst open, with a sound like an avalanche of raw hamburger.

Which is essentially what it was. None of the chimeras had bled at any point during the previous fights, but parts of this one kind of... liquefied under the force. A tidal wave of red, gooey _stuff_ swept across my apartment. The other three of us all yelped in surprise and jerked back. I'm very glad that I managed to close my mouth and eyes in time, but it still sloshed over me. Warm, heavy, and damp, like... okay, look, I'm nauseous just remembering it, so think up a suitable simile yourself. And the smell. _The smell._

For the dignity of everybody involved, I'm going to spare the details of the next few minutes. The... chimera-slurry started sublimating into mist pretty quickly, but the damage to our hearts, minds, souls, and stomach contents was already underway. All four of us ran—through a slimy mess of chimera chunks, I'll remind you—outside. It was a few seconds before we were in any condition to talk.

"Renko, a-are you okay?" Maribel said. She was leaning against the railing of the apartment and wheezing. The slurry was starting to evaporate, but her clothes were still drenched red, making her look like some kind of very dedicated serial killer.

"I think so," I wheezed. In the horrors that I had just witnessed, it took a moment to realize that she was probably referring to my near-collapse, not the explosion. "Think I just touched the wrong one..."

"None of those can hurt a human," Mokou said. Even though she had been at ground zero, and had started off coated in _centimeters_ of... stuff, she'd handled the whole affair with the most dignity. Although she was wearing an expression that I'd learn to read as, 'I could really use a smoke.'

"Oh? Then that would make it pretty interesting that they _did_ hurt her," Kaguya said, not even trying to hide her accusing tone for once.

Mokou shot her a look of disgust. "They were all made right! I've been making charms for a thousand years, do you think I'd screw them up that bad?!"

"Well, I don't know. Explain the alternative."

"Yeah, well, here's something else for you to think about. How did the youkai even get there? That thing—"

"Television."

" —was sealed when we went to bed! So either a youkai figured out how to pull off a youkai warding charm, or...!"

"Or what?"

" _Or_ somebody else pulled them off."

"Or they stopped sticking to it and fell off."

"Um, guys?" Maribel said. They didn't even slow down.

"They don't do that! They stick to what they're warding, that's what they're for!"

"And tell me, Mokou, which is the simpler explanation? That one of us decided to remove the wards and that Renko is lying about being hurt by them, or that you made them incorrectly and—"

"I know how they work!" Mokou roared. In a single step, she closed the distance between herself and Kaguya, grabbing the neck of Kaguya's outfit, a baggy t-shirt we'd gotten her for sleeping in. Yes, they were having this argument barefoot, on the balcony, at 2:28 AM, in their . "And if you'd think for a second, maybe you'd get it into that thick skull of yours that something's—"

"Yes, everything is always somebody else's fault, I'm well aware," Kaguya said, her voice dripping with cold venom.

Mokou's eyes went wide, like she'd been slapped. It didn't last long. Her expression spread into a vicious grin. "Is that so."

Maribel had been creeping toward them, one hand outstretched like she was approaching an angry dog. Now, she hesitated and took a step backward.

"Do you care to deny it?" Kaguya said sweetly.

Mokou let out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a furious growl. There was a flash of light as her fist ignited, and a split-second later, it slammed into Kaguya's stomach. Mokou carried the momentum forward, driving Kaguya forward the few meters to the stairs. As they tumbled down, they were already trading punches.


	14. Chapter 10

"Think you're better than me?! If you didn't—rrgh!"

"Better? You're the one that—"

"—doc to babysit you, you would have starved to death a hundred—"

"—the _temerity_ to blame Renko for—"

The rolling ball of hatred that was Kaguya and Mokou reached the bottom of the stairs. Landing on the cement below, they shoved away from each other. "Yeah? That so?!" Mokou had barely gotten to her feet again when she lunged forward, putting the entire force of her body into a fiery overhead punch. Kaguya stumbled out of the way, and Mokou didn't even flinch as her hand smashed into the parking lot. Fire roiled out across the pavement.

"Please calm down!" Maribel shouted down at them. She took a single step toward the stairs before remembering that she was still barefoot. "Renko, what do we do?"

"I, um."

Kaguya leapt away and hovered into the air, blasting a beam of pale energy down at Mokou. Mokou rolled aside to dodge it, and it vaporized a long line of asphalt. "If you don't admit to your sins, how am I to forgive you for them?"

" _Listen_ , you...!" Mokou crouched to the ground. The air around her shimmered for a moment, and she burst into flames. Wings of fire blossomed behind her, and she shot up like a bullet, tackling Kaguya around the waist. The two took off flying at a ballistic trajectory, a single parabolic streak of fire heading off into the night. Like a problem from a freshman physics quiz. _Assume that a 62 kilogram immortal is fired at a 25 degree angle at 13 meters per second. At t=0.7s, she impacts a second immortal, with a mass of 58 kilograms. Assuming that the collision is perfectly elastic..._

I never did get to hear how Mokou finished that statement. I was left staring in amazement as the two flew off over the top of the building across the street, becoming a dwindling ember in the sky. Hundreds of meters away, they broke apart, and an impromptu fireworks show started. Streaks of flame and bursts of silver light clashed in the heavens.

"... we need to stop them," I said.

Maribel had been just as entranced by this display as I was, and now her attention snapped back to the moment. "R-right!"

As we hurried back inside to grab our shoes, I tried to figure out what in the world we could do about this situation. We'd already missed our chance to split it up peacefully. The longer they fought, the more likely it was that somebody was going to realize something very weird was going on. ... assuming the sounds of the exploding horse-sized insect hadn't already tipped off my neighbors.

When we ran back outside, we continued right down the stairs to stand in the tiny parking lot. We could still see their fight as a series of flashes, roaming around the sky. Hundreds of meters in the air, they were far, far out of our reach.

"How long do you think it's going to take...?" Maribel said.

"I don't know. They're doing a lot of dodging, so maybe one quick hit will end it?"

"Unless it turns out like that fight in Gensokyo..."

I shuddered at the memory and prayed that it didn't come down to that. It was one thing if somebody saw a bunch of mysterious lights in the sky. It was another thing entirely if somebody saw them smashing each other's skulls on the sidewalk.

The fight carried on, becoming more elaborate as it went. What had started as bursts of flame and blasts of light expanded, soon becoming fans of fire and lances of energy that lit up the night sky. It was a beautiful display, and if you didn't know better, you never would have guessed that you were seeing two people carrying on a centuries-old blood feud.

Maribel and I were both so focused on the fight that the sound of something tapping on the pavement behind us didn't even register at first. I only idly glanced over my shoulder, and it took a few seconds more for me to make out the shape behind us. The moon and nearby streetlights provided only dim lighting, leaving us in a tangle of shadows. Standing out from even those was a patch of absolute darkness, in which my brain slowly picked out the silhouette of a spider.

The Dark Thing.

Just as I realized what I was looking at, it stomped each foot in rapid succession, spearing the tips into the pavement. It made a gravelly, crunching sound that I could feel in the pit of my stomach. The act didn't seem to have any purpose but intimidation. It was very, very effective.

"Merry," I said, and barely managed to stay in place for long enough to do so. "Run."

"Eh?" She glanced back over her shoulder. The second that her eyes settled on it, the thing launched itself at us like a cannonball. Before Maribel could hesitate further, I grabbed her hand and yanked her along at a sprint.

Only after two or three seconds did I have the luxury of thinking about where to run _to_. Whether by design or by chance, the thing had been between us and the building when it ambushed us... which meant that we were now running away from shelter. Not that I felt hopeful about our odds of hiding inside the apartment again. It had barely worked the first time.

With my pulse pounding in my ears and the sound of those pavement-shredding footsteps growing closer, I desperately searched for any possible respite. Kaguya and Mokou were still nowhere nearby. If we kept slanting out toward the road, we'd be far from any shelter larger than telephone poles. The parking lot was nearly empty, except of course for...

"The car!" I shouted. We'd been running at an angle away from it, and I jerked on Maribel's hand, curving us around toward it. Fortunately, the Dark Thing didn't maneuver as well on pavement as we did. Behind us, I could hear its crunching footsteps drift off to the left, followed by abrupt silence as it leapt into the air. It smashed into the ground mere centimeters behind us, spurring us into a renewed burst of speed. In the time it took to skid to a stop and take off toward us again, we managed to close the last of the distance to the car. I released Maribel's hand, and we went separate directions around it, with her jumping into the driver's seat and me on the passenger side.

We hadn't even closed our doors yet when the thing slammed into the back of the car, making the entire vehicle jolt forward and bounce on its shocks.

"What now?!"

"Just drive!"

"Right, um! Where's the—" Maribel's hands fumbled over the steering column, and she flinched as the Dark Thing stabbed a leg into the trunk with a shriek of tortured metal. "I-ignition?!"

Her hands found the button as soon as she said it, and the car hummed to life. Maribel wrestled with the controls for a second or two longer, putting it into manual drive mode and into gear. Another sound of smashed metal behind us, as the thing batted at a fender hard enough to dent it. And then, Maribel floored the accelerator, and we took off in reverse to ram the monster.

The Dark Thing was too big to run over, especially from a standstill. We still had more mass than it.  
The car shuddered as the rear bumper shoved into it, and it flailed in outrage against the back of the car before it was shoved aside. Now free, we accelerated past it and out of the parking lot, still driving backward, but away from the thing.

"Where did it come from?!"

"Maybe it was there the whole time," I said, gasping to catch my breath. "If they're working together."

She turned to look through the back glass as we drove backward onto the street. "It looks like it hit the car pretty hard..."

"I don't even want to look," I groaned.

"Can you see Kaguya and Mokou? We could really use some help!"

I didn't dare to roll down my window, but I leaned over to look in the direction of their aerial fight. I couldn't see anything, but that didn't mean much.

Despite being rammed by a car, the Dark Thing had recovered, and was already bounding after us again. Now that I actually had a chance to study it in motion, one thing became abundantly clear: It might have been terrible at making turns, but boy, could it move. Barely a few seconds in and it was already gaining on us, a jagged, leaping blob of darkness in the night.

"Merry," I said, with my grip on the door handle tightening. "We need to go faster!"

"This is as fast as it goes!"

It was true. The speedometer barely read 30 kph, but already, the motor had settled into a steady, frantic whirr. Driving in reverse had its disadvantages. Maribel jerked the wheel, and we flew around a corner. An oncoming car effortlessly swerved to avoid us, and I'd never been so glad for automated drivers. Unfortunately, the car couldn't turn as sharply as we could on foot, and the Dark Thing was able to keep up with us much better. It barely lost any ground as it stumbled through the turn, and with a single massive leap, it crashed down meters from the hood.

"I-it's getting closer...!" I said, trying to keep my voice steady. If that thing fed on fear, I must have been a banquet.

Maribel bit down on her lower lip, scowling as she focused on driving. It was the coolest I'd ever seen her look, although slightly dampened by the fact that we were barely going faster than an all-out sprint. The Dark Thing leapt again. This time, the tips of its front legs grazed the hood of the car, sending sparks and flecks of paint flying. We weaved around another corner, it leapt again... and this time, it landed square on the hood.

The force was enough to make the car's undercarriage drag the road for a moment. Maribel slammed on the brakes, but we weren't really going fast enough for this to pose any trouble to the thing. It reared back and stabbed its forelegs into the hood of the car. Something in the motor made a horrible grinding sound. Somehow, it kept running.

"Should we get out?!"

"We're a few blocks from my place. There's not really anywhere to go!"

We'd come to a complete stop in the middle of a narrow street, and with the Dark Thing standing on the hood, Maribel and I were both too terrified to move. It stomped a few more times, denting the hood, then stabbed its forelegs through the windshield. We both shrieked and shielded our faces. The glass was, thankfully, shatter-proof, but it was left with an opaque network of cracks across it. The Dark Thing struggled against this unwelcome obstacle, filling the car with the horrible cacophony of crinkling glass as it tore two holes in the windshield.

Once it freed its legs, the Dark Thing lunged forward again, and this time its legs pushed through into the passenger compartment. They clawed up the dashboard, ripping two jagged lines up the center of it, and it thrashed to reach us with them. Only the car's frame was stopping it from stabbing us straightaway, and even as it was, we were both pressed against our doors and scrambling to get out.

Fire lit the night from overhead. A fireball slammed into the Dark Thing, and waves of flame rolled over the remains of the windshield. When the world settled down enough for me to see again, a second or two later, the result was impressive: The Dark Thing's entire bulk was smoking, and the hood of the car was covered in scorched and peeling paint.

The reinforcements had arrived, albeit several minutes too late.

The Dark Thing shuddered in pain and jerked its limbs back out of the car, ripping out the last of the windshield in the process. Before it could free itself, Mokou fell from the heavens like a blazing meteor. She landed on the hood in a crouch, transferring her momentum into an overhead two-hand smash. The entire car bounced again (I would have been worried about damage to the shocks by this point, if it hadn't just been ravaged by a giant spider), but even over that sound, I could hear the sickening crack of chitin. Or whatever the Dark Thing was made out of. Darkness-based artificial chitin substitute.

"Where the hell'd this thing come from?!" Mokou shouted through the windshield, or lack thereof.

"It attacked us outside!"

"Can't fight this kind of thing in public without trouble, right?"

In my panic, I'd barely even thought of that. "Yeah, we shouldn't be out here!"

"Then drive!"

The Dark Thing lunged at Mokou, and she took it head-on, tackling into it and letting one of those scythe-like legs go over her shoulder. She wrapped an arm around the base, trapping the limb, and with her other hand, punched the thing in the underside. This was enough of a spectacle that it took a moment for me to shout, "The river! There shouldn't be anybody there at night!"

The river, at least if you're me and Merry, is Kamo River. It extends along one side of the campus, and has nice, broad walking paths on its banks. We were about half a kilometer away.

Of course, with Mokou fighting a giant spider on the hood, visibility wasn't great. Maribel rolled down her window and pushed her head outside, then stepped on the gas.

"Where's Kaguya?!" I shouted, squinting against the wind coming through the hole where the windshield should be.

"Killed her! Don't worry, I've got this!"

It wasn't a very reassuring answer, but there wasn't time to discuss it further. Mokou's trick with the Dark Thing's leg had let her get a good half-dozen punches in against its underside, but it had exacted its vengeance. The sharp tip had sliced a wide gash in her back as it pulled away, and deep red, arterial blood was drooling out. As soon as it had room, it pivoted and swatted at her with a leg the size of a grown man. Mokou tried sidestepping it, but there was only so much room on the hood of the car. It smashed into her with the force of a truck. I heard only the briefest gasp of pain as she flew from the hood and fell tumbling to the road.

"Renko...!" Maribel wailed.

"I saw! Um." I tried to stay calm and think of a plan, but mostly I could only think, _crapcrapcrapcrapcrap_. The Dark Thing turned toward us and reared back. Maribel yelped and ducked her head back into the car, right as it crashed down. Its legs pierced through the roof, and it used them as leverage to haul itself up, now splayed across the hole where the windshield should be. Bracing itself, it pulled backward, and with a groan of abused metal, began tearing a hole in the roof. If it couldn't get to us through the windshield, it seemed ready to make its own entrance. We were being hunted by the world's largest can opener.

"Okay, Merry," I shouted over the wind whistling past us, and shrank back against my door. "On three, slam on the breaks and we'll..." I looked around. We weren't quite to the river yet, but in the middle of a bunch of small businesses. Nowhere that was open this time of night, but there was plenty of cover. "I'll jump out and try to lead it away! Like a decoy. Once it's gone, you get to safety."

"You can't outrun that thing!"

"No, see, I've got it—" I flinched down as the Dark Thing's legs stabbed through the ceiling again. The holes were now large enough to fit my head through. "I-I'll, um, I'll go over a bunch of obstacles, and it will have to slow down to climb over them, and...!"

"That's crazy! I'm not letting you do that!"

"Merry, you have to trust me! We... we might not both make it out of this, and I—"

Before I could finish my heroic/suicidal speech, an orange light in the rear view mirror caught my eye. It was Mokou, a flaming cruise missile streaking after the car. She was catching up to us, actually.

She looked very, very pissed.

"Merry, hit the brakes!"

"I'm not letting you—!"

"Please, just do it!"

Maribel gave a frustrated groan, but cooperated. She slammed on the brakes, and the car screeched to a stop. With her suddenly much higher relative velocity, Mokou caught up in seconds. She didn't slow down a bit, but instead slammed into the Dark Thing at full force. As large as it was, she still managed to tackle it into the air, and the two tumbled down onto the hood and off of the car.

I almost felt sorry for it. Almost. It was left on its side, scrambling to right itself, and Mokou was having none of that. Its limbs slammed into her, but she gritted her teeth and shrugged it off. A sharp-tipped leg speared into her back, bringing a fresh gout of blood; in retaliation, she grabbed the base of the leg. White-hot flame burst out of her hand, and the leg fell to the ground, twitching and still smoldering in the spot where it had been connected.

"Y'know, all I wanted tonight...!" Mokou slammed a flaming fist into the Dark Thing's underside. When her hand pulled back, gooey strands of some kind of bodily fluid were hanging from it. "... was to get some sleep...!" It smashed a leg into her chest, and even though a snapping sound came from within, she somehow managed to keep herself in place. "... and not deal with...!" Another punch. A shudder ran through the thing's entire body. "... this kind of...!" She gritted her teeth, with blood running between them now, and burnt another leg off at the root. The Dark Thing was moving only weakly now. "Bullshit!"

Mokou pulled her fist back, and it burst into white-hot flame. She took a step back, and put the entire force of her body into a blow, arcing her fist overhead. It punched through the creature's carapace with a sickening squelch. She didn't let up, punching again and again, pounding and scorching whatever passed for its internal organs, until it went limp beneath her. Even then, she continued for a few more seconds, until finally black mist started rising from the corpse. "There," she gurgled, past a mouthful of blood. "'s dead."

Our drive had ended at a ramp down to the river path, so we were thankfully off the main roads. The occasional late night traveler went past, but they paid no attention to a single car parked off the side of the road. Mokou laid on the ground, barely moving. Maribel and I stared out the now-empty hole where the windshield should have been, overwhelmed by everything that had just happened.

It seemed that the fight had been the only thing keeping Mokou upright. She sat there for a few seconds, hunched over the Dark Thing's sublimating corpse and taking deep, ragged breaths. Then, with one final wheeze, she collapsed to the ground. The noise of the battle faded, replaced by silence.

I reluctantly opened my door and stepped out of the car. After that fight, I felt naked and exposed without metal around me. I was concerned for Mokou, though. There was a spreading pool of blood beneath her, and she still wasn't even trying to stand up. Maribel got out of the car too, and had taken a few steps toward her before a new obstacle showed itself.

The black mist was still rising out of the Dark Thing, and unlike with the chimeras, it was hard to miss. It was a thick, black cloud, like night itself was boiling up out of the corpse. It clung to the ground, a tangible presence that blocked all light that passed through it. Soon, it was like a wall of darkness between us and Mokou.

"... is it supposed to be doing that?" Maribel said.

"I... don't think so?"

The cloud was moving now, its higher areas oozing forward and then drifting down to spread across the ground. Somehow, I didn't think it was a coincidence that this act was bringing it closer to us.

Maribel eased back, taking a step away from it. "Maybe we should... go around."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best. ... er..."

Where the cloud had already been moving toward us, now it was reaching out. A long tendril on the leading front pushed out and curled in our direction, like a limb that was feeling for something. Maribel stumbled backward and waved her hands at it, trying to fan it away, but the motion only coaxed it onward.

"S-stay back!"

"Merry," I said, my voice low and level. I felt like I might provoke the cloud if I made any sudden movements. "Let's back away, and once we've got some distance, we'll run, and we can—"

The tendril seemed to have found what it was looking for. The entire cloud flowed forward now, like an advancing storm front. The world beyond it disappeared behind darkness.

We didn't hesitate. We turned and ran. The cloud rushed forward now, flowing over the car and around obstacles, roiling blackness that followed us unerringly. The front of it lashed out. It speared into Maribel's back, and the entire mass lunged forward, flowing around and engulfing her.

"Merry...!"

I stopped in my tracks and rushed over to her, but I wasn't sure what I was about to accomplish here. The cloud had contracted around Maribel in an orb, a cocoon of darkness. Past the haze, I could just barely see her kneeling on the ground, screaming and swatting at it. This had no effect.

The cloud was shrinking, though. Or rather: It was flowing into her. Lines ran through it, like the flow lines in water, all leading to the same spot—Maribel. In a matter of seconds, it collapsed in on itself and disappeared.

Maribel was left coughing and sputtering, hunched over on the ground. I checked the surroundings warily, but the cloud really did seem to be gone. I crouched down and helped Maribel up.

"What _was_ that thing?!"

"I-I don't know. Is it gone?"

"I think so. It..." I hesitated, trying to think of a gentle way to tell Maribel that the menacing black apparently-living cloud of evil energy had fled into her. "It went away," I said simply.

"Did it?" Mokou's voice said from behind me. "Looked to me like it went into Maribel."

"What?!" Maribel said.

I whipped my head around. There Mokou was, standing a few meters away, like she'd always been there. Her clothes were still just as ripped up as they'd been the last time I'd seen her, but in barely a minute or two, she'd healed enough to go from near-dead on the grass to standing... even if she was still hunched over in pain.

"I... she's right," I admitted. "Do you feel okay, Merry?"

"Um." Maribel inspected her hands, like she was expecting to find herself growing claws or something. "I don't feel any different. Do you think I should be worried? It didn't do anything, did it?"

Mokou eyed Maribel suspiciously, but for once, she didn't argue. "Never seen a youkai do that before," she said, and stepped closer, rolling her shoulders sorely. Something inside made a crackling noise. "Dead's dead, though."

It made no sense, but then, nothing that had happened for the past week made much sense. I studied Maribel, but she seemed to be telling the truth. No injuries, no odd behavior... for all I knew, this was a standard part of youkai hunting. "I don't know," I sighed. "It's not weird that the cloud went toward Merry?"

"It's weird, yeah. Trust me, though, that thing's dead. Won't be causing us any more trouble. Besides, we shouldn't stay out here long. There could be more of those things around."

"Oh. Yeah." I glanced back toward the direction we'd come from. "So Kaguya is...?"

Mokou scowled at the name. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she glanced aside. "Around. Don't worry, nobody's going to find the body. We can pick her up on the way back. We should grab something to drink too."

"I don't know... Merry and I have class tomorrow." Although I was already trying to figure out what excuse I was going to use to skip it. I'd been woken up at 2 AM by shouting, I felt like I was going to need a few hours just to calm down, and above all, I was going to have to figure out what to do about the car. Tomorrow was not going to be a productive day for my studies.

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure I've got a rib through my liver right now, so I could _kinda_ use something to, you know. Keep my mind off all the bleeding."

I took a second to imagine: if Mokou's normal behavior was her baseline, what would 'grumpy' look like? "... we should buy some drinks on the way back," I said.

* * *

"All I'm saying is that with a little more preparation, we could have made this a party," Kaguya said. "We did kill one of the two unique youkai tonight, right? That seems like cause for celebration."

" _I_ killed it, you mean. Not sure what you have to celebrate," Mokou said.

"It seems to me that Maribel and Renko were involved, too..."

"You know damn well that I did all the work there!"

"You definitely got stabbed the most. Maybe you should consider dodging in the future."

"Whatever. That's another kill for me, and the count was already four to two."

"Was it, now?"

"Yeah. I killed one of them in the apartment before that, and three in the dead guy's apartment."

"We don't know he's dead..." Maribel interjected, in between sipping the head off of a beer.

"The point is," Mokou continued, "I've got more than twice your score. Guess I should start thinking about what requests to make of you. I need to think of some really juicy ones."

After the fight, we had indeed stopped by an all-night carryout to pick up some alcohol. (After an anxiety-inducing run to retrieve Kaguya's corpse and haul it home in the battered car, then rinsing up. Any other time, that kind of thing would have been the most noteworthy event of the entire year. The fact that it barely merits a footnote here probably says something.) Mokou had been… very enthusiastic about the shopping process, and only my limited funds prevented her from talking me into buying half the store. We still ended up with two bottles of sake and a large bottle of nice beer, which was more than I expected the four of us would drink in one session.

I was wrong. We'd barely been sitting down for five minutes before Mokou claimed one of the bottles of sake for her own, and only after chugging a third of it did she deign to acknowledge that anybody else was present. Kaguya had resurrected and come stumbling out of my bedroom about fifteen minutes later, and showed a surprising ability to hold her liquor for somebody so delicate-looking. Now, the four of us were spread throughout the main room of my apartment. We'd tipped the couch back up into the right position, and Maribel and I were sitting on it. The rips would have to be fixed sooner or later, but it was comfortable enough for now.

"Really?" Kaguya said. "I've already decided what I'm going to ask for if I win."

"And what's that?" Mokou said, with what might have been the highest possible level of feigned disinterest that a human could achieve.

"Well, first of all, I'd like you to kiss my feet and admit that you've been acting unreasonably toward me for the past millennium."

"Not a chance."

"Oh? But that's the agreement, isn't it? Honestly, Mokou, if you aren't going to honor the spirit of the bet, then what's the point?"

Mokou grumbled under her breath and took another swig of the sake. The bottle she'd claimed was rapidly disappearing, and she was barely even showing the effects. "Fine, whatever. What are the others?"

"Hmm." Kaguya held a hand pensively to her mouth. The act didn't look quite so elegant when she was wearing a t-shirt instead of a robe. "Second, I will procure the fanciest dress that I can find, and you'll have to take me on a date to the village while wearing it."

Mokou grunted.

"Third..." Even with her hand still hiding half of her face, I could tell that Kaguya had a growing grin. "I'll see if Eirin can make a medicine that will give you rabbit ears, and you will accompany me as my loyal maid for a week."

"If you're not gonna take this serious, we'll just call it off now!"

"Oh, I'm very serious! Eirin was able to make us transcend eternity. I'm sure that she could manage rabbit ears. You'd look very cute with them."

"Yeah, whatever. Look, if you're done, you just reminded me of something that actually matters."

"Oh? You don't want to hear my other two requests?"

"I already killed you once tonight. Don't push your luck." Mokou turned toward toward me and Maribel and leaned forward, resting her weight on the bottle in her hand. "Anyway. You guys said we can only go to Mount Fuji during certain times, right?"

I'll admit, with everything else going on, I'd almost forgotten about the conditions we'd agreed to for Mokou's cooperation. "Oh… yes. It's only accessible to the public for two or three more weeks this year."

Mokou nodded, staring down at the floor in thought. "I want to go, then. Payment for getting us this far."

"Oh. Well." I really wanted to say no, at first. The night's events had shown that we really needed to keep our guard up, and combined with everything else—school, and the ruined car, and Yuuta's disappearance—we had plenty of other things demanding our attention. But, I also got the feeling that things were going to be hectic until all of this was over. The perfect opportunity wasn't going to present itself. "That… might be doable. It would probably be twenty or thirty thousand yen for sleeping arrangements for all of us, though..."

"Sleeping arrangements? Just find a sheltered spot and build a fire."

"That isn't allowed anymore."

"There's a two thousand yen ecological fee per person, too," Maribel said. "Um, they waive it if you pick up trash, though. There's an armband, I think."

"Huh, do they? It doesn't sound very relaxing, if you're playing garbage man the whole way."

"Probably not..." Maribel agreed.

Mokou looked between us, her expression a mix between confusion and annoyance. "So can we go, or not?"

I did the math in my head. There was no way I could afford to pay for the sleeping accommodations, but if I begged some money from my parents under the guise of paying for unforeseen school fees, Maribel chipped in what little she could, we did the armband thing, and we carried our own food up with us… "It won't be comfortable, and we'll be eating instant noodles for the next month, but we can afford it, yes." I tried to remember what day it was, but my brain was so scrambled that I found it easier to look at the sky. 5:18 AM on Friday, August 30, 2069. I sighed. The fact that I was both awake and drinking at 5 AM meant that I probably wasn't going to my Friday lab, anyway. "I'll start looking into reservations."


	15. Entity File 7: The Dark Thing

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #7  
The Dark Thing**

 **Type:** Youkai  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Based on the circumstances where we encountered it, it's possible that the Dark Thing had the ability to blend into shadows, becoming undetectable while it waited for prey. Otherwise, it only seemed to be preternaturally durable.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Innate youkai abilities.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** Noguchi Amphitheater, Kyoto – August 22, 2069. Outside the apartment of Renko Usami, August 23 and 30, 2069.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Vulnerable to youkai extermination tools.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Animal-like.  
 **Size:** Over a meter tall, two or more meters in span. At least 150 kg.  
 **Other Notes:** The Dark Thing, like the other youkai encountered as part of Special Case File #1, is believed to have been created out of Maribel's fears. It took the form of a massive spider, and its surface was entirely dark, absorbing all light that hit it. Considering that it displayed some sort of elemental affinity for shadows, it's possible that it was made out of darkness itself. If that's even possible, at least.

The Dark Thing, in many ways, was the most straightforward youkai that I have encountered. For the most part, it behaved like a hungry animal, only driven to attack its prey. I think it's important to remember that, as a youkai, it was still more complex than a simple animal. On at least two occasions, it performed actions that didn't seem to serve any purpose except for intimidating us. Since the Dark Thing had no apparent mouth, I think it's safe to say that it fed entirely on fear, rather than needing to eat people. It's possible that if it had managed to corner us, it wouldn't have killed us. That doesn't mean it wasn't extremely dangerous, though, since it still seemed very willing to injure its victims. It would also seem that the Dark Thing harbored supernatural diseases which would infect the wounds of its victims. We have been unable to determine whether this bears any relation to the disease that Maribel caught in the TORIFUNE incident. (Case File #25)


	16. Chapter 11

The hard part about preparing for a trip to Mount Fuji wasn't the packing, or getting the reservations. It was the money. As soon as it was late enough in the morning, I called my mom and begged her into loaning me some more. Almost every yen went into preparations for the trip. After buying train tickets and reserving four spots in a climbing hut, my bank account had forty-eight hundred yen in it.

While I was dealing with that harsh reality, a police officer showed up at my apartment to inform me that some nice people down at the station would be very interested in talking to me about where I was last night, and also, if I was the one currently renting that completely wrecked car outside.

So, here I was, sitting in a dingy little room in a police station and fighting for my life.

"So, to summarize your story," Officer Sakuragi said. He was a short, dark man with short, dark hair, and a pair of glasses that he adjusted every time he wanted to demonstrate that he was thinking. Like now, as he looked over the tablet where he was entering his notes on our exchange. "You and your friend were going to the store at two AM. You got into a minor car accident, which caused all of the damage to the car, and then returned home."

"Yes," I said, in my calmest, this-definitely-isn't-a-lie voice. "That's correct."

"According to the car's internal records, you were going in reverse for much of the time."

"A-ah, um, well. Because of the damage to the windshield, it was easier to see out of the back glass..."

"The accelerometer also recorded multiple impacts."

"We… did I say one accident? We did bump into a couple of other things on the way back. Since we couldn't see."

"I see," Officer Sakuragi said, in a voice that made it clear just how bad I was at lying. "Could I please ask you to take a look at one more while you're here?"

There should be a special name for the dread you feel when a police officer asks you for one last thing during an interrogation. "Of course."

Officer Sakuragi adjusted his glasses again, and tapped on the tablet a few times before sliding it across the table toward me.

On the screen was a collection of four pictures. All four of them were views of the street from above. In each picture, the car was visible. Each one had a timestamp in the corner to attest that they were taken during the events on Thursday night. Not that I had any doubt, since the contents made that clear. The pictures were dark and a little grainy, but it was obvious that the car had gotten more and more beaten up as the timestamps progressed. In some of the pictures, there was a blob of darkness on the hood, which I knew was the Dark Thing. Or, if you weren't familiar with it, you'd probably just write it off as a weird interplay of the shadows, or at worst some obstruction.

Rather harder to miss was Mokou, standing on the hood in two of the images. In one of them, she was on fire.

I stared at the pictures, and considered just how utterly doomed I was.

Part of me wanted to just tell him the truth. _Well, a giant, armored, evil spider popped out of my friend's head at a magic show last week, and it attacked us while my immortal bodyguards were having a laser fight in the sky at 2 AM, so we tried to run away..._

Instead, as I fished for an explanation, a selfish, unpleasant thought insinuated itself into my head: _Let Maribel deal with it. She caused all this in the first place._ Before I could even think twice, I was speaking.

"My friend Maribel was driving," I said, and flipped the pad around to show him the pictures. As luck would have it, the cameras had all captured the driver's side. You could just barely make out the driver within the darkness, and I wasn't even visible in the passenger's seat.. "You see? The driver is blonde. She borrowed the car from me last night. I don't know what she needed the car for, so you'd have to ask her."

Officer Sakuragi inspected the images, then looked up at me over the rim of his glasses. "And you didn't mention this before because...?"

"I hadn't wanted her to get in trouble. I'm sorry."

"Lying to a police officer is a criminal offense, you do know." He sighed. It was the sigh of a man who really didn't want to do the extra paperwork to make that one stick. "Is your friend with you?"

"Yes, she's outside."

"Please send her in."

* * *

In the end, Maribel somehow managed to convince Officer Sakuragi that the entire thing had been for a student film, which just happened to include Mokou performing some pyrotechnics on the hood of a moving car. She got slapped with fines for everything from reckless driving to endangering public safety. The fact that neither of us got jail time was, he told us magnanimously, a compromise since we'd done the responsible thing by confessing the truth and agreeing to pay.

I was left with the full cost of replacing the car. Again, I had forty-eight hundred yen in my bank account. I could no more pay for a car than I could jump to the moon. That was a worry for later. More immediately, I was distressed by my own actions. I couldn't figure out what had possessed me to think that accusing Maribel could have been at all helpful. She seemed to take the whole thing in stride, trusting that it was some plan of mine. I didn't have the heart to tell her that, as far as I could tell, it was a lie to save my own skin, made up in a moment of panic.

At least the trip would provide a nice distraction. We'd already been packing when the police had shown up, and we'd been most of the way done. When we left, all that was really left was to swing by the apartment and pick up Mokou and Kaguya.

"Get it sorted out?" Mokou said, as we walked in. She was hunched over one of the packs that I'd prepared, reviewing the supplies. Considering how poorly the last wilderness expedition I'd planned had gone, I wasn't about to protest this.

"More or less, for a definition of 'sorted out' that includes me and Merry going bankrupt."

"That means, 'not really,' in Renko language," Maribel explained.

"Eh..." Mokou looked between us in mild confusion. "So, does that mean the trip is off, or what?"

"No, it's still on," I said. "We just owe a lot of money now. At this rate, it might be easier to just let the youkai eat us."

"Yeah..." Maribel flopped down in a chair next to her own bag. "Maybe we can just hide out in Gensokyo until everybody forgets we exist. Kaguya, last night you said that you could use a maid, right?"

"Oh, yes, maids would be wonderful! The inabas would love the help, I'm sure."

"Great," I said. "Merry is a pretty good cook, and I can clean."

"You _are_ kidding, right?" Mokou said, glancing between us uncertainly.

"Probably. Anyway, nobody's arrested us yet, so we can leave whenever the bags are ready."

I won't go into great detail on most of the trip. We departed around noon, having slept about five hours in the morning while Mokou kept watch over the TV. The trip to the mountain was a blur of public transportation: The Hiroshige line to the Gotemba station, then transferring to a different train and going two stops down to get to the Fuji area proper, and then a shuttle bus ride up the Subashiri base station.

The train, Kaguya and Mokou had been able to handle. The bus was a bit much for them, though. It was cramped, creaky, and crowded, packed wall to wall with tourists. We were left crammed into a corner, and Mokou was exactly short enough to get stuck with some European guy's armpit centimeters from her face. Past the many other riders, we could barely see the windows, with the occasional flashes of green that I had to assume were the mountainside.

At the base station, everybody piled out and formed a fifty meter line to pay the ecological fee. It took forty minutes to get through, then a few more minutes to fill out the forms to waive the fee in exchange for picking up litter. We each got a green armband, a pair of gloves, and a heavy-duty plastic litter bag. Three hours after we'd left home, we were ready to depart.

Us, and about two million other tourists. The trail was packed, a ribbon of humanity that stretched up the mountainside as far as I could see. We stood at the trailhead and looked up at this marvel of nature.

Mokou was the first one to speak. " _This_ is Mount Fuji?!"

"It is, yes," I said.

"And all these people are going to the top?"

"Mmhm."

"It's a long walk. I barely made it when I was a kid." Mokou eyed the tourist-crammed path suspiciously, like she was expecting us to admit that we'd come to the wrong mountain.

"It actually gets less visitors than it used to," Maribel said. "Because of the ecological fee."

"It used to only be pilgrims and madmen."

"Everything pure will be made unclean. That's the nature of this Earth," Kaguya said. To this day, I'm not sure if her voice sounded like she was mocking Mokou, simply stating a fact, or actually pleased by the observation. Maybe it was a little of all three.

Mokou scoffed and shook her head in annoyance. "So, what? Do they all want to see Sakuyahime that bad?"

"Sakuya...?" After a moment of thought, Maribel perked up. "Oh! That's the name of the goddess who lives at the summit, right?"

"Uh, yeah? That's the only reason anybody would walk all the way up there."

"Hmm. Well, maybe a little. It's more like… it's a very important place. Is that why you wanted to come here? To see the goddess?"

"Something like that." Mokou looked toward the path again and gave a frustrated huff. "Whatever. Let's just get moving."

We set off up the trail, with Mokou leading the way. She moved at an aggressive pace, overtaking families with children, sightseers, and couples. Not that it mattered much. No matter how many people she passed, there were always more in front of us. Hardcore climbers with professional-looking backpacks. Foreign tourists dressed nowhere near warm enough for the higher altitudes. The lifetime hikers, with walking sticks worn smooth at the tops. We saw them all and traveled alongside them, like a solid river of humanity flowing up the mountainside.

The sounds of nature were drowned out by feet crunching on gravel and the shouts of children. The paths we hiked no longer bore any resemblance to a natural mountainside. They'd been worn smooth by millions of feet, and handrails had been installed everywhere there were a steep slope. Every ten or twenty minutes, we passed a little outpost of civilization, vending machines and bathrooms standing amid the emptiness. These always had crowds of travelers around them, and usually a trail of discarded coffee cans and napkins that extended for five minutes afterward. Maribel and I dutifully picked these up and dropped them into our litter bags.

We climbed. We climbed for hours. The children around us quieted down, their excess energy sapped away by the long and tedious ascent. The trees vanished, then most of the vegetation with it, leaving us walking up a barren volcanic plane. Fuji is considered one of the most beautiful sights in the world from a distance, but up close, it is just a whole lot of rock. What had started out with a feel of adventure turned into a long, interminable slog. Put one foot in front of the other for eight hours and don't die of boredom, and you too can eventually visit the top of Mount Fuji. Whether this is a good idea or not is a matter of fierce debate.

Throughout this, Mokou's mood steadily dropped. We'd started out making light chatter, with me and Maribel trying to pry the reason for the visit out of her, but this too fell away as we progressed. Mokou was left walking in silence with a single-minded determination. She focused straight ahead and simply climbed, like she knew that there was some goal ahead that would make all of this worth it.

As we got higher, progress got slower. At steeper spots on the mountainside, or near crowded vantage points or rest stops, we had to literally wait in line just to progress on the trail. The air grew thinner, and the great flow of humanity slowed down as everybody wheezed for air. As the night approached, the temperature dropped, and we paused to pull on more layers of clothing.

Finally, in the evening, we reached our mountain hut. I'd paid twenty-six thousand yen for overnight shelter for the four of us, and that didn't include food. I wanted nothing more than to sprawl out on something soft and sleep for ten hours.

When we opened the door, we found a small, cramped building, a solid and noisy mass of humanity. It smelled of sweat, old shoes, and instant food.

Mokou took one look inside, and through gritted teeth, said, "I'm going to take a walk."

"You should stay here," I said. "If you get lost or something…"

But she was already retreating. She walked off perpendicular to the path, along the slope of the mountain. She raised a hand to acknowledge me. "I'm not going to get lost!"

"Where are you _going_?"

"Away. For a bit." She stopped and turned to look back at me, hands in her pockets. "Look, I told you I'll protect you, and I will. I've just... gotta think about some stuff."

"That's not what I'm worried abou—"

She'd already turned and started off again. This time, I didn't stop her.

"Huh..." Maribel said, from behind me. "Do you think she's disappointed?"

"I would have liked nicer sleeping arrangements, myself," Kaguya said. "But I doubt that's it."

"You know what this is about, then," I said. It was not a question.

"I... have my ideas, yes." Kaguya turned in the opposite direction from where Mokou had gone, looking down along a steeper area of the mountain. "Do you think we could get a good view over there? I'd love to get a better look at things."

"Um, yeah, sure, we probably could. Do you want to give it a try?"

"If it's no trouble," Kaguya said in a sing-song voice. Already, she was walking off along the mountainside.

This path was rougher. Calling it 'wild and untamed' would be a misnomer, since thousands of other hikers had probably strayed this way before us, but the stone wasn't yet worn smooth by sneakers. That made it rather more wild than any other areas of Fuji that we'd seen so far. We had to ease our way past dozens of people snapping photographs and admiring the scenery, and kept going until we were almost alone. Kaguya stopped when she found a nice spot, where the treeline below parted in just the right way to let you see out over the countryside. Facing East, we were looking out over Gotemba and toward Tokyo.

Seen from above at night, the view was spectacular. With all of the lights coming on, the land below was a vast ocean of stars. Cities and neighborhoods were sprawling cosmic organisms, with delicate spiderwebs of streetlights linking them. The contrast with the nighttime we'd seen in Gensokyo couldn't have been sharper. Humanity no longer had reason to fear the darkness. We had banished it long ago.

Kaguya looked out over this, contemplative, for some time. "My," she said. "Humans spread to fill every available space, don't they?"

"There really are a lot of us..." Maribel said, with an apologetic half-smile. "The rest of the world isn't like this, though. We're trying to learn how to live together with nature. It's just... taking a while."

"Oh? Maybe humanity really is becoming wise." Kaguya's tone was warm.

"There's a reason there are so many humans," I said, a bit annoyed by her smug certainty. "Our ancestors were lucky to live past childbirth. Now, we've made a world where nobody has to die needlessly. That's progress."

"Hmm, that's true. And stasis is no fun. But think about this mountain. It's huge, right? Humans used to say that it was a holy place. Now..." She turned, and displayed her litter collector armband to us. "It's different. Would you say that the changes have all been improvements?"

"Well, no, but it's in the public interest to allow visitors. Setting a mountain aside and not letting anybody see it doesn't benefit anybody."

Kaguya nodded, in a way that made me feel like this was some kind of test, and I was the smartest mouse in the whole damn control group for passing it. "You're right. It's not entirely better, and it's not entirely worse. That's progress. Here on Earth, even a mountain will change, in time."

"This has something to do with Mokou, doesn't it?"

"Oh? I couldn't say." Still giving a cryptic smile, Kaguya turned to look out over the scenery again. "... however. Eternity is a very long time. In Mokou's lifetime, empires have risen and fallen, billions of people have lived and died, and a secluded mountain for hermits has become this. It's something the human mind doesn't handle well, I think."

"She's… thirteen hundred years old, right?" I said.

"I think so, yes."

(The next passage probably sounds really trite to anybody older than me. All I can say is: Please cut me some slack, I'm only nineteen.)

You know that feeling you get when you're online and you see some kid talking about the good, classic music, like they made in the old days? And then they list something that came out when you were eight as an example of the lost golden age of humanity? That point when you realize that there are people who grew up after entire touchstones of your identity had risen, become popular, and fallen out of favor again? When, for just a second, you have an actual _sense_ of how long it has been since you were a child, and you realize just how much the world has changed since then?

I tried to imagine that, except multiplied by about a billion. I couldn't do it, but I tried. I tried to imagine the vending machine-cluttered, tourist-stuffed landscape around us as pristine, beautiful wilderness a millennium ago, and that come to me only a little more easily.

In lieu of expressing any of this, I mumbled, "Oh. Um… wow."

"But what is she looking for up here?" Maribel said.

"You'd have to ask her. Peace of mind, probably." Kaguya gave a wistful smile. "Such things can be hard to find for an immortal, I'm afraid."

We stood in silence, as Maribel and I struggled under the weight of the knowledge that had just been thrust onto us. I used to think that immortality would be wonderful, and reactionary stories were the only reason that everybody didn't want it. Now, after the trip to Mount Fuji… I don't know anymore.

I'll be disappointed if humanity invents some revolutionary technology after I die. Missing out on superluminal travel or a post-scarcity society would be one hell of a disappointment. Knowing what I do now, though, I'm not sure if I would accept immortality if it were offered to me.

"You seem pretty sympathetic to her," I said, after some time.

"Do I?"

"Well, I mean..." _'… for somebody who beat her head in with a rock last week'_ probably wasn't the right way to finish that sentence. "Considering how much you fight."

"I'm going to be alive for an eternity," Kaguya said. "I could hope for worse things than entertaining company."

* * *

After forty-eight minutes looking out over the landscape, a combination of darkness, a howling wind, and the cold drove us back into the hut. Packed into the cramped space with dozens of other hikers, we had a meal of nutrition bars and bottled drinks, rested our sore feet, and finally, went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, Mokou was back, like nothing had happened. After her fight against the Dark Thing, it had taken her most of a day to heal up as good as new. A squeaky clean body, fresh from the dealership. Now, I could see that she'd put some mileage on it again, with bumps and bruises to attest to her overnight travels.

I have no idea if she'd even slept. I don't think that things like skipping meals or going without rest really slowed Mokou down much. Despite walking all day and being out for most of the night, when she saw the nutrition bars Maribel and I were eating, she passed and stuck with a single apple for breakfast.

We were a bit more energized as we started out for the second day of hiking. We'd made good time the previous day, making it all the way to the eighth station before we stopped for the night. It left the summit almost within view, and Mokou headed toward it like a woman possessed, cutting across curves and elbowing her way through crowds.

We'd gotten up well after daybreak, which proved to be a mixed blessing. On one hand, it meant we weren't racing hundreds of other people to the summit to see the sunrise. On the other hand... we had to deal with all of those people as they came _down_. It turned the entire trail into a gridlock of people sliding past each other, and even though we only had to travel a few hundred meters in elevation, it took us the better part of two hours to pull it off.

Finally, though, we pushed past the last few knots of tourists and made our way to the summit of Mount Fuji.

It's a fairly modern place now. There is practically an entire small settlement of restaurants, souvenir shops, and other amenities, all within a few meters of being the highest point in Japan. Those members of the morning crowd who hadn't left still crowded the area, leaving the entire rim of the crater dotted with hikers. Mokou didn't let this slow her down as she took off toward it.

"H-hey, wait!" I said, wheezing in the thin air. I hurried after her, but she wasn't going far. She eased herself up to the edge of the crater, looking down into it with her hands in her pockets.

"It used to have fire," she said, after some time. Her expression was unreadable.

"They've declared it an extinct volcano."

Mokou tensed up, and for a moment, I thought she was going to dive off the edge. It was a long, steep drop from our position. I'm sure it wouldn't have posed a problem for her, but I was glad I didn't have to explain that to other spectators. Instead, she leaned forward, out as far over the crater as she could, took a deep breath, and bellowed, "Sakuyahime!"

There was nothing. Between the thin air and the sheer size of the crater, not even an echo. I don't think anybody else even paid much attention to her shout, among all the other noises on the busy mountaintop.

"Heh." After almost a minute of waiting for an answer, Mokou pulled out her pouch and filled her kiseru. Her expression was unreadable, but her hands were shaking. "D-damn mountain's changed more than I have," she joked halfheartedly.

"Mokou," Kaguya said. "You don't need to pretend that you're not..."

"I'm not pretending anything, princess," Mokou said, without the energy to give the last word the biting sarcasm she usually did. "Give me an hour." She slumped down and sat on the edge of the crater, her feet hanging down on the rocky slope. "Go see the sights or whatever."

None of us budged. All three, I think, felt like there had to be something more to say.

"Go on," Mokou said. "Get going."

Maribel and I backed off. Kaguya hesitated, but followed after us a few seconds later. By the time I looked back over my shoulder, we were far enough away that I couldn't be sure whether I was imagining that I saw tears glistening on her cheek.

* * *

It's tradition to walk around the crater of Fuji, and since we had the time to kill anyway, we did so. We weren't in much of a mood for talking. We simply moved in silence, admiring the scenery and occasionally trying to spot the red-and-white dot that was Mokou on the other side.

When we returned, she was back to her usual stoic self, smoking her pipe right where we'd left her. (I think that smoking is prohibited on the entire mountain since the last round of new laws to protect it. I appreciate the irony of banning smoking on a volcano.) "Welcome back," she said as we approached. "See everything you wanted to?"

"I think so," Maribel said. "The view is pretty beautiful."

"Good, good. I'm ready to go whenever you are."

Maribel glanced uncertainly to me, and I sensed that it was going to be my duty to call everybody's attention to the giant, glowing elephant in the room.

"Before we go," I said. "... is there anything you'd like to tell us?"

"Maribel's hat looks ridiculous," Mokou said dryly. "I've been meaning to say something for days,"

"You know what I mean."

"Huh, do I?"

"Mokou, we're your friends, right?"

She took a long pull from her pipe and slowly exhaled the smoke. "Kaguya sure as hell isn't. And a kid like you should think twice about calling somebody like me your friend."

"Then as your _acquaintance_ , I would advise you that, if there's anything you were hoping to get out of this trip, you're running out of time. We're here for your sake. If you need to take a detour or something, we'll do it, but you have to speak up."

"That so?"

"Yes."

Mokou didn't answer. Not immediately, anyway. She grumbled and looked back out at the crater. She puffed on her pipe, with a thoughtful look that told me she was going somewhere with this.

"I've killed," she said, after a long silence. "A lot of people. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. Even more youkai. For a long time there, I didn't care. If it got in my way, I killed it."

She paused, and flicked the ashes from her pipe as she let that sink in.

"I can tell myself that most of them deserved it. Deep down or whatever. Most of the humans were bandits or out to kill me in the first place. Youkai would have done worse to me back then.

"Way back when I was a kid, though... there was one guy, Iwakasa. He was leading the soldiers who were supposed to throw the Hourai Elixir into Fuji. I followed them up to steal it, and he caught me. I'm just some kid, right? He could've tossed me back down the mountain then and there, and nobody would've even cared. Instead, he let me tag along and made sure I was okay. I think he was just a normal guy in over his head. Saw some dumb kid tagging along and decided to make sure one good thing came out of the trip, I guess.

"I probably would've died up here, if he hadn't done anything. At the top, there's a big fight, and when we head back down, it's just me and him. He still had the elixir, I wanted it... you can probably figure out where this is going. On the way back down, I kicked him down a cliff, and ran off with the elixir. He helped me out, and for his reward, he died alone in a pile of rocks. Meanwhile, I'm going to live forever."

"That's... that's horrible," Maribel said.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't regret stealing the elixir, not for a second." Mokou shot Kaguya a warning glance. "But Iwakasa... he didn't even get a burial. Probably turned into a hungry ghost or something. Even that's gone now. Don't know what I was expecting to find, coming back after a thousand years."

We fell silent afterward. I know that I sure as hell didn't have any constructive advice to give on the 'I once killed an innocent man and now I feel bad about it' front.

"He has probably passed on to his next incarnation," Kaguya said gently. "Seeing things pass is part of immortality. You should get used to it."

"This isn't the time, princess."

"Shall I tell you about eternity, Mokou? Do you really understand how long 'forever' is?"

Mokou ignored her. Kaguya pressed on.

"Do you know what Eirin says, about what will happen eventually? The sun will get bigger and bigger, until everything on Earth dies, and Earth falls into it. The moon too. It sounds pretty scary. Iwakasa, this mountain, and everybody you've ever known… all of it will vanish, never to exist again. The only way to avoid it is to lock yourself away, forever unchanging, like the lunar capital has."

"You really ought to learn when to shut up."

"We might be able to find another planet to live on, but the same thing will happen there. And again. And again. Everybody you ever know, and everything you ever love, they'll all die." Kaguya leaned in, her voice growing quieter, with a slight smile on her face as she twisted the knife. "And compared to how long we're going to live, the whole thing will be as short and meaningless as the first time you blinked after you were born. _That_ is eternity."

Mokou glared down at the rocks in stony silence. Kaguya paused for effect before continuing.

"But… if you think about it like that, the nicest thing you can do for somebody is remember them. Some day, they will die. This planet will die, too. The sun will die. Even this universe will die some day. But as long as you or I remember them, something will live on." Kaguya pulled back and let out a slight sigh. Her expression returned to a more natural smile. "Or, you could spend the entire time being sad about it, I suppose. Humans weren't cut out for immortality, after all. Hmm, although if you're going to spend the whole time moping, I might have to find a new rival..."

At first, I thought Mokou was going to kill Kaguya then and there. She stayed silent, though. After some time, she spat out a single sharp, disgusted chuckle. "That," she said, "was the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. You think you've got it _all_ figured out, don't you? No. No, here's what's gonna happen. When me and you are the last people left on Earth, I'm going to come back here, and I'm going to turn this whole damn mountain into a tombstone. It'll stand here for ten million years, with a giant sign on the side: 'Here lies Iwakasa. He deserved better.' And then I'm going to follow you around forever, just so I'm there to strangle you the next time you try spouting such wishy-washy _bullshit_ again."

They were left almost face to face after the exchange. Mokou was baring her teeth in a vicious grin. Kaguya had a mocking smile. If it had been a movie, Maribel would have been shouting, "Just kiss, already!" while I shushed her.

"It's settled, then," Kaguya said. "Would you like to go, or did you plan to stand up here and feel sorry for yourself for a few more hours?"

"I've _been_ ready. You're the one holding us up with your damn speeches."

"O-oh, um!" Maribel sheepishly stepped forward. I think I would have been reluctant to inject myself into such a conversation, too. "Can I do one last thing before we go?"

"Whatever," Mokou said. "You two are running the show."

"Could we… me and Renko… could you take a picture of us? Something to remember the trip by!"

"I'd be happy to," Kaguya said. "Just show me how."

Maribel hurried over and gave Kaguya a crash course on operating a smartphone camera. She picked it up surprisingly quickly. Then, we stepped over to stand in front of the crater.

"If you want some really nice vacation pictures, we should take some when we go back to Gensokyo," I said.

"Oh! I could get a picture with all the cute rabbits!"

"I was thinking something more dramatic, but sure."

"Oh, right. Um, anyway, here." Maribel squeezed in next to me, and coaxed me into moving our hand until we had our arms around each other's backs. "All set, Kaguya!"

As we stood there, waiting for Kaguya to take the picture, I became aware of a few things.

Do you know what an intrusive thought is? They're those little self-destructive urges that drive you to do things that you would never, ever consciously want. When you're walking over a bridge and you realize that you could jump off at any time. When you hold a baby and you get a compulsion to drop it. When you get urges to shout out obscenities during a wedding ceremony. Almost everybody gets them now and then.

Standing barely a meter away from the steep edge of the crater, a single thought settled into my head: With just the slightest shove, I could send Maribel falling. It was a forty-meter drop down to a stone slope. There was no way she would survive. In my head, I knew exactly how it would play out. The feeling of my hand applying pressure and her falling off-balance, the gasp of surprise she'd let out as she tumbled backward, the underwhelming distant 'thud' as she impacted the rock below.

And... I wanted it. She deserved it. She was a dead weight, slowing me down. I could kill her here and now and nobody could blame me. I'd be doing the world a favor, if anything; one less helpless, annoying pest. It would be so wonderful, and all I had to do was give one tiny push...

"Um, Renko?"

My attention snapped back to reality. Everybody was looking at me with concern. From their perspective, I'd been staring off into space, apparently ignoring a few prompts to smile for the picture.

More worryingly, I'd loosened the arm around Maribel's back. My other arm was tensed up, prepared to give Maribel a shove. One shove was all it would take, after all.

"A-ah, sorry! Guess I zoned out." I hurried back into position and slid my arm back around Maribel. I squeezed onto her, safeguarding myself against any unwanted sudden movements.

"Are you sure? You looked pretty far out of it… If the altitude is getting to you, I could give you a kiss to warm you up," she teased.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I said. Now that I'd had a second or two to clear my head, the foreign desire was gone. I would never do something to harm Merry, I knew. It had been a momentary impulse, nothing more. Most likely, just the stress getting to me.

I still didn't allow myself to relax until the picture was taken and we'd stepped away from the ledge.


	17. Entity File 11: Fujiwara no Mokou

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #11  
Fujiwara no Mokou**

 **Type:** Human  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Flight, pyrokinesis, immortality, knowledge of esoteric techniques for binding and exterminating youkai.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Results of Hourai Elixir (immortality), Trained (all others)  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** n/a  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Literally none.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human.  
 **Size:** Human.  
 **Other Notes:** Getting any detail about Mokou's past out of her is difficult, because she doesn't like to talk about it. Or about things in general, really. Even so, from her own comments and some input from Kaguya Houraisan (Entity File #10), a rough picture can be constructed.

Mokou was born the youngest daughter of a noble family, not destined for anything except a politically convenient marriage when she was old enough. When she was young, her father courted Kaguya Houraisan, only to be rejected. (It's possible that he was one of the princes mentioned in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Neither party can confirm this.) Mokou considered this a large enough affront to her family name to develop a grudge against Kaguya. When she heard that Kaguya had left an item behind and retreated from society*, she set out to find it, and upon hearing that it was an immortality elixir, she killed the sole surviving guard and drank it for herself.

She now claims to regret becoming immortal, and says she's looking for a way to die. Privately, I'm not sure she means this.

Mokou has been alive for almost 1400 years, and it shows. She claims that she has mastered almost every non-academic field of human endeavor that existed prior to the sealing of Gensokyo, and while I think this is probably an exaggeration, it's not far off. Her combat abilities, including her flight and control of fire, all seem to be esoteric spiritual arts that she's picked up over the years, any one of them likely requiring decades of practice for a non-psychic human to perfect.

If Mokou has one weakness, it's her recklessness. After centuries of immortality and experiencing her own death hundreds or thousands of times, Mokou has lost all fear of dying, and even uses combat moves that depend on sacrificing her life to succeed. This probably makes her a terrifying opponent to fight, but it also means that she doesn't pay much attention to her own defense. If you ever have to fight her for some reason, my advice would be to kill her as quickly as possible and then run very far away.

Upon death, it takes anywhere from minutes to almost an hour for Mokou to resurrect. (Eirin she doesn't truly die, but arrives at state that is infinitesimally separated from true death.) This appears to depend partially on how aware she was that her death was coming, her own willingness to come back to life, and probably several other factors. In the case of purposeful suicides in combat, her resurrection is almost immediate.

For further details on Mokou's immortality, please see the entity file on Kaguya.

* In Mokou's words, Kaguya 'returned to the moon.' Kaguya says that she has never been back to the moon after her exile, though.


	18. Chapter 12

After the fight with the Dark Thing and the Mount Fuji trip, nothing quite felt normal again.

How could it? For two weeks, Maribel and I had been attacked by youkai every few days. We'd both missed a few days of class since it had started, and were now swamped with make-up work. I was already in danger of failing one of my courses. This would usually be enough to send me into a panic, but after being stalked by monsters, traveling to other worlds, getting interrogated by cops, and battling giant spiders, I had a little more perspective.

I had bigger things to worry about than my grades in a single class. Surviving to the end of the semester, for one.

So, the days following the Fuji trip weren't _normal_ , but they were about as peaceful as our new youkai-filled lives would allow for.

The local car pool sent a bill for the totaled car, with every addition they could think of—a fee for towing the wreckage away, a thirty thousand yen 'service fee,' a fee for the hazardous waste handling needed to dispose of the battery. All in all, it could have eaten up a few months of even my father's prodigious salary. With no hope of paying it any time soon, I shredded the bill and resolved not to worry about it for now.

The Watcher was now obsessed with Maribel and I. Whenever we went into public, every television, every screen, every reflective surface that we walked past soon filled with that familiar pattern of darkness and eyes. It never attacked us, not in public. Much to Mokou's annoyance, I wouldn't let her slap ofuda on public display terminals and digital billboards. It was a weird ceasefire, with bystanders occasionally pausing to stare at the eyes gawking at them from the televisions.

Mokou and Kaguya's late-night duel made the news. Half a dozen people had recorded the weird aerial display, and it was kind of hard to miss. Of course, it brought the conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork, saying that it was everything from a UFO duel to the radiation from a government mind control device. Before long, the agreed-upon explanation was that it was a choreographed light show, performed with aerial drones. Everybody pointed to a performance that somebody had put on in Osaka in 2048 as an example. If they were happy with that explanation, I wasn't going to complain.

The chimeras had continued attacking people, only adding to their budding urban legend. With what we'd seen before, we put together a working theory: All of the chimeras were cooperating with the Watcher, or under its control. It had to be dropping them on unsuspecting victims through their televisions and mirrors. The thing seemed to be able to flit from television to television with no regard for distance, and we suspected that that was how the chimeras were evading discovery: in between attacks, they disappeared back to wherever they stayed when the Watcher didn't need them. Dozens of videos and pictures of them had now been leaked, and they were a pretty big topic of conversation around campus. The news mostly ignored this phenomenon, apart from the occasional pityingly-framed human interest piece on one of the obviously delusional people who claimed to have seen a monster.

On the third day, September 3, I was woken up by a late-night battle.

Again.

Maribel and Kaguya had slept over again, after I'd spent most of the evening tutoring Maribel in math. This time, Kaguya got the bed, so we ended up with Mokou on the floor, Maribel on the couch, and me on a futon in the bedroom. Yeah, Mokou still ended up roughing it. Maribel had felt bad for making Kaguya sleep on a couch like a drunken college student the previous time. I'll admit, it didn't feel appropriate.

While the scream shocked me to awareness, it took me longer to get my wits back about me this time. I patted along the wall to keep from bumping into anything. "Hey!" I shouted into the darkness. "Is everything okay?!"

I was answered with the sounds of combat… and the shatter of breaking glass. "Another…!" Mokou's voice answered. A loud, sickening thump followed. "Attack!"

"All lights on!" Maribel's voice shouted from somewhere in the darkness.

But it was already over. Only one chimera had pushed out into my living room this time, a giant mammal—a bear, I think?—whose limbs tapered down into bundles of tentacle-like protrusions. It was laying dead on the floor, chopped in half straight down the middle and already dissolving into mist.

This time, Mokou hadn't had the patience for the nonviolent approach, and my poor TV had paid the price. I wouldn't have thought that somebody could punch _through_ a television, but the evidence was right there, a still-smoldering hole through the base of the TV and long, bloody scratches up Mokou's arm.

Mokou was gasping for air, and she was pissed. Kaguya wasn't even in the room yet, so her usual reasons for outrage didn't apply. "Where the hell did the ofuda go?" she demanded.

"Huh…?" I glanced at the television, blinking with blurry eyes. Sure enough, the warding ofuda was missing again. "It could have fallen off…?"

"It didn't. Get Kaguya in here. We've got some work to do."

* * *

"One of us," Mokou said, "is a traitor. It's about time we found out who."

The other three of us were seated side by side on the couch, still wearing our sleeping clothes. If it weren't for the broken television and Mokou pacing in front of us like a drill instructor, it would have looked like a slumber party.

"Aren't you being a little melodramatic?" Kaguya said.

"No, I'm not," Mokou said. "That's two times now that those youkai have gotten through that thing. The ofuda is missing. It didn't fall off, it's _gone_. So who took it?"

"The youkai could have found a way to move it."

"Not without hurting themselves, they couldn't."

"Maybe they used gloves."

"Yeah, they just walked in here, put some gloves on, and pulled the ofuda off the TV so they could get into the apartment. Makes perfect sense. You should let the doc do all the thinking, princess."

Kaguya went quiet, pouting.

"It's still jumping to conclusions to say that one of us did it," Maribel said. "There has to be some other explanation. None of us would do that."

"There is that," I said. "Why would any of us want to let youkai attack us at night?"

"I heard them." Mokou paused for a moment to let that sink in. "It's why I was able to kill the youkai so fast. Somebody was walking around and woke me up. I got up to check it out, and that thing was already coming out the TV."

"That doesn't make sense. We would have noticed if somebody was out of bed when it happened."

"Would you? It was dark, and there was a lot of noise. As far as I'm concerned, it could've been any of you."

I sighed, but Mokou did have a point. It wasn't like I would have known if Maribel had been walking around before the attack started. Kaguya claimed to have slept through the whole thing, but she would have had plenty of time to sneak back to bed during the excitement. Between the darkness and the confusion of the fight, none of us had much of an alibi.

I tried to recall as much of the night's events as I could. So, to begin with, I'd been sleeping in the futon. I'd heard the shouting, gotten up, and—

Or... maybe not. My memories were fuzzy on that topic. It had been dark. I'd... had I even been in bed? I couldn't remember getting up. I'd heard the screaming, and then I was on my feet. I could have just forgotten the few seconds after waking up, I supposed, but I was used to sleeping in a bed. Waking up on the floor should have been novel enough for me to need a few seconds to get my bearings. The first concrete thing I could remember was groping my way through the hallway, but that didn't mean much.

And then, I realized the one reason it couldn't have been me.

"If any of us had done it, wouldn't we have a burn on our hand?"

"Eh?" Mokou looked to me in confusion.

"From the ofuda, I mean. They hurt anybody who touches them, right?"

"No. Only youkai and ghosts. But..." She frowned and straightened up, looking at me a bit more critically. "You did say you got hurt by one that last time, didn't you?"

"I... did, yes." Admitting this was starting to feel like a mistake. "It shocked me or something. It really hurt, and I felt like I was going to pass out. And that was just from a quick touch."

Scowling thoughtfully at this, Mokou walked across the room and dug in her bag. She fished out her stack of ofuda and brought them over. Thumbing through them, she picked out a blue warding one and held it up. "One of these?"

"Well... I touched the whole stack. I don't know which color it was. It really hurt, though."

"None of them should hurt humans."

"It did."

"Here." Mokou held up one of the red ones, giving it a waggle. "Extermination. The strongest ones I have. It's just fine, see?" She took a step closer and offered it over to me. "Touch it."

I shrunk back, cringing at the memory of the pain. "I'd really rather not..."

"I wasn't asking."

"Mokou, don't you think this is a bit unnecessary?" Kaguya said.

"If Renko is getting hurt by anti-youkai charms," Mokou said tersely, "that's kind of important to know."

"Renko wouldn't do anything to hurt us," Maribel said. "I trust her."

"If she doesn't have anything to hide, it's a harmless piece of paper," Mokou said, and turned back to me. "Last chance. Touch it, or I'll slap it on you."

I stared down at the paper. After my experience the last time, it looked far more intimidating. "Right," I said. I'd give it a quick tap with my fingertip. If I was lucky, it would be a harmless piece of paper. If I was unlucky… well, it would hurt, but it wasn't anything I hadn't already gone through.

"Renko," Maribel said. "you don't have to do this."

"I-it's fine, Merry." I took a deep breath and raised my hand.

"Hurry up," Mokou said. "It's just a piece of paper."

My hand crept forward slowly. It was like trying to convince myself to stick my hand into an open flame. "Mokou, she's _terrified_ ," Maribel said. "Leave her alone and—"

Maribel reached out to pull the ofuda away... and as soon as her fingers brushed it, a spark of white energy jumped to her hand with a sharp _snap_. Acrid smoke burst out. Maribel jerked backward with a squeak, clutching her hand to her chest and gasping in pain.

"Merry!" I slid over next to her to check for damage, but there didn't seem to be much real harm done. There was a red, almost lightning-like burn on her hand where the energy had impacted. If it was anything like my own experience, that would fade in a few minutes. I gave Maribel a reassuring pat on the shoulder and glared at Mokou. "You see?! I don't think those things are working right, Mokou."

"They only work on youkai," Mokou repeated. Without warning, she turned and slapped the tip of the paper against Kaguya's cheek. No effect. "See?"

"Maybe they work on everybody but mortals," Kaguya said, as she eased her face out from under the ofuda.

"Or _maybe_ there's something else going on here. Renko, touch it."

I still hated the idea of giving Mokou the satisfaction of complying with this witch hunt. On the other hand, if they hurt both me and Maribel, maybe she'd accept that they weren't working as intended.

I reached out, and hesitantly tapped the ofuda. Pain spiked through through my finger, sending my entire hand into tingling numbness, and I recoiled backward, gripping it to my chest. Mokou nodded in satisfaction. "Thought so."

"I think they're busted," Kaguya said.

Mokou held the ofuda up and inspected it against the light. In the spots where Maribel and I had touched it, the paper was now scorched and crinkled. "Or maybe," she said, "we're working for a pair of youkai."

"If Maribel and Renko were youkai, it would be pretty silly of them to hire a youkai hunter," Kaguya said. She reached over and gently tugged the ofuda out of Mokou's hands, then shot the two of us a tired smile. "How about something more productive? Should we search the apartment? Maybe we can find some hints about what happened."

I don't think any of us really expected to find much, but after Mokou's inquisition, it was a welcome change of pace. Maribel and I agreed, and we spread out to look for clues. I searched around the television, but of course, if the ofuda had fallen off, we would have found it long ago. I glanced in the trash cans, but it wasn't in any of them, either.

And then, as I tried retracing my steps, something tugged at my awareness. There was a slight pressure at my side, like a weight in my pocket. I hadn't put anything there, though. Which would mean...

Okay, before I continue, there is no dignified way to put this: Maribel and I were wearing matching pajamas that night. She'd seen them at a store when we were shopping one day, and she'd thought that matching jammies was the cutest idea. She got pink. I got violet. They had white pinstripes on them. She made sure that we wore them any time she stayed the night, as a couple thing. Let the record state that Maribel Hearn has the tastes of a six-year-old and that it's adorable.

Which is all a roundabout way to say that, yes, I had pockets, those shallow half-useless things they put in pajama pants. Now, I slipped my hand into my pocket, and my fingers brushed against something, something that I'd somehow known was there. Paper. Cringing, I pulled it out, and found myself looking down at the ripped up remains of an ofuda and a rumpled tissue.

What. In. The. _Hell_.

I stared down at the ripped paper, and my mind raced to untangle this mess. I had the ofuda. Of course I did. I'd known it all along, actually. If I strained, I could even summon up fuzzy memories of creeping through the apartment at night, carefully grabbing the corner with my tissue-wrapped hand and tugging it free before sneaking back out of the room. I'd paused in the hallway, ripped it in half to nullify it, stuffed it in my pocket, and... Well. And then the shouting had started. A few minutes later, here I was. Why did I do it? I didn't know. I could only remember the experience, like I had been watching a movie.

I tried to approach this revelation calmly, but anxiety still burned into the front of my mind. Maybe I _had_ been out of bed at the start of the fight. It wouldn't be the first inexplicable thing to happen to me lately. Thrusting all responsibility for the car onto Maribel. Trying to push Maribel into the crater. Mokou was right. Something was wrong here. Something was wrong with _me_.

I eased the paper into my pocket and hurried back out into the main room. Mokou was sitting on the couch, watching with disinterest as Maribel and Kaguya searched around the books piled along my wall.

"Um, hey, guys?"

"Did you find something?"

All three turned toward me, and I hesitated, trying to organize my thoughts. _It was me. I'm the one who pulled the ward off the TV. I'm sorry, I don't know why I did it, but I'm scared and I need your help. Please believe me._

Instead, my body stepped forward, unbidden. My hand dug in my pocket and pulled out the ripped-up ofuda, holding it up in my cupped hands to show it off. "I found this."

Maribel and Kaguya moved closer, while Mokou leaned in to inspect it. "Good going, I guess," she said. "Where was it at?"

"In my bedroom," I said. "In Merry's purse."

There was a moment of stunned silence in the room. In my head, though, I was panicking. I hadn't tried to say any of that. It wouldn't have even _occurred_ to me. My body was ignoring my every instruction, following a script all of its own. Like I was the driver of a runaway truck, discovering that the brakes weren't working halfway down a hill.

Maribel eyed the scraps incredulously. "You looked in my purse?"

"I had to be thorough."

"Somebody else must have put it there..."

"Why would somebody else hide something in your purse? You'd find it as soon as you opened it up. The only one with any reason to hide something there is you, hoping that nobody else would search your things."

"That's, that's _ridiculous_."

"Renko, do you mean to say," Kaguya said, with a carefully cultured unaccusing tone, "that Maribel pulled the ofuda off of the television, walked into the bedroom where you and I were sleeping, put it in her purse, and walked back out, all without waking either of us up? And for what reason?"

 _No, I don't,_ I wanted to scream. _I did it! Me! Please don't listen, I almost killed Maribel last weekend! Something is wrong with me!_

"All I said was that I found them there. If you want to know why Maribel is trying to kill us, maybe you should ask her."

"Renko...!" Maribel sounded like she wasn't sure whether she was more bewildered or outraged. The hurt in her voice was obvious.

It felt... nice?

It felt wonderful, actually. _She really does have it coming._ The thought popped into my head out of nowhere, and I didn't even realize how unnatural it was until a split second later. _After all I've done for her, all the trouble she's put me through... Maribel deserves a little payback. A spineless thing like her has to learn to stand on her own some day, after all._

The twisted thoughts were a nauseating, alien thing, darkening my mood even as I tried to steer my attention back toward figuring out what in the hell was going on. While my emotions warred with themselves, the outside world carried on, oblivious to my predicament.

"For once, the princess is right," Mokou said with a sigh. "That doesn't make much sense. Unfortunately..." Mokou grabbed the shredded ofuda out of my hands and inspected it. Her findings didn't seem to impress her. "... it's the only clue we've got."

"I didn't do anything," Maribel mumbled. Her eyes were fixated on the floor, like she was uncomfortable with even looking at me right now.

 _Good. She's learning her place._ This time, the thought slipped past all of my defenses, blending in seamlessly.

Hatred slipped over me like a comfortable, warm blanket.

* * *

In the end, we could only agree on a few things. Somebody seemed to be actively sabotaging us. None of us could agree who it was, or it if was even one of us. Mokou couldn't think of any way to determine why Maribel and I were getting burnt by anti-youkai charms, at least not without a risk of killing us. It only left one plan that satisfied everybody: We'd all sleep in the same apartment, and we'd have two people stand guard overnight. Each night would be one of the immortals and Maribel or I, so that there were never two of us who had gotten burnt by an ofuda on guard at once. Mokou could live without much sleep, and I could tolerate some pretty weird sleeping patterns. So, we arranged the schedules around this, with her and Kaguya swapping roles once during the night, and me and Maribel shuffling sleep schedules around as our bodies demanded.

One benefit of this was that I didn't see much of Maribel.

She disgusted me. On the rare occasions when we were both awake and not attending classes, I found myself furious at her very existence. I maintained a cold distance from her. It was, I felt, very important not to be too openly antagonistic. Just showing her this much lenience pained me. After a few failed attempts to figure out why I was suddenly so standoffish, she assumed that she'd done something to upset me and gave me my distance.

You would think that finding myself suddenly hating my girlfriend would continue to set off alarm bells in my head. It didn't. It felt right and natural. Whenever I tried considering it too closely, something steered my thoughts away from the topic and back toward more pleasant matters. When I wasn't thinking of Maribel, though, I felt fine. Most of the time, I don't think any difference even showed in my behavior.

As such, even in retrospect, I can't say how many of my actions during the days that followed were actually mine. My mind had been invaded by an alien force, and there was no clear line where I ended and it began.

Sitting around with one other person every night was a bit weird, especially when that other person wasn't Maribel. On the occasions when we were at Maribel's apartment, there was at least a working television to keep us entertained. I spent several nights trying to get Mokou interested in it without success, until I discovered that even an ancient and grumpy hermit cannot resist the allure of martial arts movies. Kaguya was a bit easier. She'd watch pretty much anything I showed her with an open mind, although she usually drew some uncomfortably broad assumptions about human customs from them. After a while, I figured out that she didn't like anything with too much killing. What she did like was cat videos, but you'd be surprised how quickly you'll get bored of cat videos if you watch nothing else for four hours straight. (Kaguya didn't, though. I remain convinced that if she really does end up living forever in a dying universe, she'll be able to keep herself entertained for eternity with nothing but a large enough storage drive filled with recordings of kittens.)

To provide some variety, I usually tried to show her lighter fare, but not quite 'cat video' light. She got a quick introduction to a bunch of shows I'd liked when I was younger— _Rainbow Rabbit and the Starbase Squad_ , _Piyo Piyo Science Heart_ , the Osa-ani remake of _Rezaman_. You know, classic fifties kid stuff. After I'd gotten a bit more of a feel for her tastes, I started branching out a bit more, and that was when I'd gotten my best idea yet: showing her a film adaptation of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

When the movie ended, she was left watching the screen with something between horror and amusement. "None of that was very accurate, I'm afraid."

"Well, it's a thirteen-hundred year old story by now..."

"My adoptive father was much nicer than that, for one."

"I think he is in most versions of the story, too."

"And what about the elixir?"

"I think they cut it for time."

"At the very least, I didn't go back to the moon afterward. An oversight that big just seems sloppy."

"That's how it goes in the folktale, though..."

"I'm sorry, but your folktales could use some revising, then. Is there any way to get it corrected?"

"It's probably a little late for that."

She nodded with a sigh. "Viewed only as a story, it was nice. … please don't show it to Mokou, though. If she knows that I got a movie made about me, she won't calm down for a week."

We talked on as the credits rolled. Kaguya argued that she shouldn't have even gotten a movie made about her in the first place, since the time covered by the folktale hadn't been _that_ eventful. I tried spinning this into some larger fact about folktales and myths usually having their roots in pretty mundane events, but she was having none of it.

We were well into this conversation when I noticed that eyes had crept into the credits.

This really wasn't anything new. We'd taken to cautiously removing the warding ofuda when we watched movies, because Maribel's minimalist flatscreen TV didn't have anywhere to stick it except on the screen itself. The Watcher had been following us for some time, after all. It had only ever tried attacking us when it caught us completely off guard, so this was more of an unwanted annoyance than an immediate threat.

Barely two weeks ago, seeing it had been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Now, I just gave a tired sigh and pushed myself off the couch. "I'll take care of it."

"What do you think it hopes to accomplish by watching us like this?"

"I don't know. What do youkai usually want?"

"Usually? A drink and a good party, I think."

"If it's waiting for a drink, it could be here a while." I wrapped my hand in a tissue from the box next to the TV and grabbed the ofuda from the table. In the strange impasse we had going on, everybody had tacitly agreed to overlook the fact that Maribel and I were still vulnerable to anti-youkai charms.

The gap had expanded to cover most of the screen, with only the occasional glimpse of the credits sliding beneath it.

"You know," I said, and waggled the ofuda threateningly at the screen. "This would all be a lot easier if you'd just leave us alone."

The many eyes continued to stare ahead without reaction, like they always did.

"I guess that would be too easy, huh? Alright, hold still. This will probably sting. Hopefully."

Before I could slap the ofuda on, the gap shifted. It flowed over the few untouched areas of the screen, filling it from corner to corner. In the middle, it seemed to grow transparent, and another image showed through. It started out as signs of vague movement in the darkness, but slowly grew sharper and brighter. Squinting at it, I could barely make out a human face at first. As it got clearer, I realized that it was a familiar one.

Yuuta Ishimori was staring blankly out of the television. It took me longer than usual to recognize him because, well, he was different. Thinner. Paler. His former slicked-down hair was messy and greasy, like he hadn't bathed in days. He showed no sign that he could see us, but only sat there, staring off into space and breathing unsteadily, as if in pain.

"Why is it showing us a person…?" Kaguya said, walking closer to peer into the TV.

"He's—we know him. That's the psychic who was there when the whole thing started. The one whose apartment we visited." For a moment, I considered trying to reach through the gap, before remembering the multiple chimeras that had been bisected by them. Even Mokou had never been reckless enough to try climbing through to the other side. "I… do you think this means he's still alive?"

"Hmm. It could be a recording or something, too. There's no guarantee it's a live image."

"I wouldn't want to read too much into—"

The image onscreen flickered, the viewpoint changing location every few seconds. Brief glimpses of a dark room. Metal shelves, concrete floors, light streaming in through broken windows. I got the sense that the disjointed viewpoints were moving through a series of rooms sequentially, like it was searching for something. The flashing series of images abruptly stopped, and a piece of paper was left onscreen. It was laying on the floor, yellowed and wrinkled from age and humidity. It looked like some kind of old form. An old... shipping form.

"What is that?" Kaguya said, tilting her head to read it.

I fumbled my phone out of my pocket. "I don't know, but it has an address on it. It's in Kyoto, even." I hurried to snap a picture of the thing.

"Hmm. Do you think that's where it is?"

"Yes," somebody else answered.

It sounded so natural that it took me a moment to realize that neither of us had spoken. The voice had come from within the television. It was feminine, with a strange... blurriness to it. Like somebody had taken recordings of a dozen different people and blended them together until no trace of the originals remained, leaving it lacking in identifying features.

"Did it just talk?" Kaguya said.

"Um. It hasn't before."

The screen was still displaying a shipping form, and I doubted that it could talk. "Hello?" I said, shifting uneasily as I remembered the last time we'd tried addressing the Watcher. Hopefully this time would end with fewer gorillas.

There was no answer. I pressed on. "Do you understand me?"

Still nothing. I was starting to think we must have imagined the voice. "Why are you showing us this?"

The voice answered promptly. "A choice is offered. In the future, you are arriving at displayed address." It spoke calmly, and even the strange grammar sounded deliberate. "Result of refusal is termination of individual Yuuta Ishimori."

I frowned at the screen as I tried to untangle the meaning of that. "You'll... kill Yuuta if we don't go there," I translated.

"Correct."

"What do you _want_ from us?"

No answer.

"This sounds like a trap," Kaguya said.

We both watched the screen expectantly. Ten seconds passed before it spoke again. "Latest acceptable arrival time is one hundred, eighty-nine thousand, two hundred sixty-eight seconds later than current time. At that time, termination is imminent."

The gap snapped shut. We were left watching the tail end of the credits.

* * *

It didn't take long for me to do the math. The deadline that it had attached to its ultimatum was just over two days. The whole situation sounded like a giant trap, and it hadn't bothered to deny the possibility. In the end, I realized that it didn't matter. If the thing had Yuuta, there was no way we were going to leave him in its clutches. If we were going to confront it, we would be going prepared for a battle no matter what. So, ultimately, it didn't matter how we interpreted anything it said. The outcome would be the same.

After days of infighting and suspicion, there was something reassuringly simple about that.


	19. Chapter 13

Heading out for our grand confrontation with the Watcher, we were probably the sorriest-looking youkai extermination squad ever.

We didn't have a car anymore, after all, which meant that we had to take public transportation. When you're heading to a fight, this is a bit of a problem. Mokou had wanted to bring a big supply of ofuda. I'd wanted to bring the pistol just in case. Since I didn't think anybody would look too warmly on me walking around in public with a gun, I dug out an old backpack from my high school days. We carried the weapons in it, hidden under a few random articles of clothing in case anybody peeked inside.

So, we rode off to battle against an eldritch horror on a city bus, with a mighty backpack half-full of supplies. The ride was one of the few times that Maribel and I had been in the same room and awake since the whole late-night confrontation. I spent the ride pointedly ignoring the series of uncertain glances she shot my way.

The closest bus stop to our destination was half a kilometer away. It left us walking through an old industrial district, and since we'd arrived in the early evening, most of the businesses had shut down for the night. The occasional driverless truck rumbled past on the last leg of a delivery, but the air was otherwise silent. The area had no sidewalks or greenery, and most of the factories looked like they'd passed their prime decades ago. With gray factory walls and chainlink fences hemming us in on every side, I think we all felt a little claustrophobic, and hurried along to our destination as quickly as we could. Even without youkai involved, I was already dreading the thought of walking back through that scenery after nightfall.

The warehouse the Watcher had pointed us to didn't have its address posted outside, but I'd memorized its coordinates, and knew which one we were looking at by the time we were within a few hundred meters. From the outside, it didn't look like anything special. Yet another big, windowless prefab box, surrounded by a chainlink fence with a single gate for vehicles. The other buildings around us all had dozens of trucks hanging off of them, waiting for the morning shift to unload their cargo, but this one had row after row of unused loading bays. A weathered sign on the fence announced it to be Tanizaki Chemical Logistics. I looked up the name and found a company website that hadn't been updated since 2057. Always a good sign.

We hunted around outside for a short while, but there really wasn't anything to see. The loading bays were all locked tight. The lot around the building held nothing but old shipping pallets and corroded chemical drums. After a full circle of the building, we tried what seemed to be the main foot entrance.

It was unlocked. Mokou pushed the door inward, and the fading sunlight only illuminated a few meters inside the building. The rest was darkness. I fumbled in the bag for the flashlight, but Mokou summoned a white-hot flame into her hand and thrust it inside. The added light barely made a difference. I mean, warehouse, right? The place was cavernous. Even with Mokou's fire, we could barely make out the shape of the rafters on the ceiling.

Mokou angled her hand around to shine the light across the room. "I don't like it. There could be anything waiting in there."

"That's why they brought two big, brave bodyguards," Kaguya said, giving her a pat on the shoulder.

"Yeah, well, it's not us I'm worried about. I don't know if we can keep the two of them safe, though." Mokou jerked a thumb toward me and Maribel, and turned to address us. "Probably safer for you two to stay outside."

"What if that's what it wants, though?" Maribel said. "The two of us out here, unguarded, and then it attacks us as soon as you're out of earshot."

"Then all three of you can stay out here. I'll handle whatever's in there by myself."

"Miss Fujiwara, I think it's safer if we're all together."

Mokou held her gaze for a moment before capitulating with a sigh. It didn't seem to keep her down for long. She'd been in a pretty good mood all night. Personally, I think she'd just been itching for the opportunity to fight something other than a chimera. "Fine, fine. Gimme my stuff and let's get this over with."

I shrugged the backpack off and unloaded our supplies. Mokou had brought a hefty pile of ofuda in a variety of colors, and peeled off a small stack of youkai extermination ones. Maribel was put in charge of holding the flashlight, and for me... the pistol. Faced with the possibility that I might actually need to use it, I realized that I was woefully unprepared. I should have shot it once or twice just so I knew what to expect. But, there was no time for that now. It was the last resort of last resorts anyway. I doubted it would kill a chimera, let alone something like the Watcher.

With that done, we stepped inside.

The beam from the flashlight traveled farther than the light from Mokou's fire, but we still had pretty short visibility. We'd left the door open behind us, but it soon faded into nothing but a distant rectangle of light. The flashlight illuminated millions of motes of dust in the air, making it look like we were walking into a snowstorm. Off to the right, we saw a little reception area with a desk. All of the furnishings looked like the place had sat unused for decades.

A short way inside, we started walking over colored stripes, bright markings to divide the floor into lanes for forklifts and pedestrians. Soon, we were walking past towering shelves, piled high with massive bags of powdered substances and drums of chemicals.

We were twenty-five meters from the door when Mokou pointed at the distance. "Over there. Give it some light."

Maribel pivoted the light toward the spot where she was pointing, but I spotted the anomaly before the light even got there: In the near-total darkness, small white things were reflecting the light from the fire.

Eyes.

The flashlight's beam revealed a puddle, meters wide, that had leaked out of a massive storage tank along the wall. It was jet black, glossy, and probably the source of the chemical stink that was making my eyes water.

Standing liquid, I realized, could also hold reflections. One of the few criteria we'd found for where the Watcher could create gaps. It was a single giant mirror half the size of my apartment, and the Watcher had turned it into a massive portal.

As always, the eyes stared out at us, blank and uncomprehending. It was slightly creepier when they covered an area half the size of my living room.

"That was easier than I expected." Mokou raised her flame like she was preparing to throw it. "Wonder if that stuff will fry..."

"N-no!" I stepped forward between Mokou and the puddle, my arms raised to block her. "We don't know what it is! That could be jet fuel or something."

"What's that mean?"

"I think it means that the explosion would even leave you and I coughing up shrapnel for a year afterward," Kaguya said.

Mokou scowled. She'd now been put in the position of having to choose between blowing herself up or possibly giving the impression that she'd listened to Kaguya. The choice seemed harder than it ought to have been. "Eh," she said, in a 'I've had worse' kind of tone. Thankfully, she extinguished the fire. "Whatever. There are other ways to do this."

She pulled a warding ofuda from her stack, and with a flick of her wrist, sent it sailing through the air toward the puddle. It landed right in the middle of the thing, and that now-familiar white smoke drifted up… for about half a second. The liquid soon soaked into the ofuda, and it sank down into the mess, inert.

The gap in the liquid's surface didn't budge.

We all watched this display in silence for a few seconds, taking in the implications. A gap that big, and that was only near the entrance. Who knew what else could be waiting for us deeper in the warehouse?

"So, now what?" Mokou said.

"We have to keep going," Maribel said. "Mister Ishimori could still be back there."

"The real youkai had better be back there too. I'm tired of fighting mirrors and TVs. And puddles, apparently."

"I don't think we're going to find it here," Maribel said.

"Eh? Why's that?"

"Haven't you seen it? I think it lives in..." Maribel paused, in a way that I knew meant something horrible was coming. " _Ai_ chi prefecture." Of course, she said the 'ai' in a way that stressed its similarity to 'eye.'

"Oh, yes, that would make sense," Kaguya said, quite solemnly. "Or perhaps it lives somewhere cold. I'm sure it's more comfortable surrounded by _eye_ ce."

"Oh, oh! Maybe it's an… _eye_ dol."

"An idol? It would seem to me that it's only a pupil."

They both burst out giggling at this pun, and I sighed. "Yeah, well," I said, "if Maribel's done wasting our time, we did come here to fight a youkai."

Maribel's laughter instantly died, and Mokou shot me an uncertain glance. "Er. Kinda blunt, but Renko's probably right," she said. "We should get moving before that thing gets any ideas."

There were a few seconds of silence, until Kaguya, as quietly as she could while still being heard, answered, " _Eye eye_ , commander."

She and Maribel broke down laughing again, and with a groan, Mokou started off deeper into the warehouse, making it clear that she wasn't about to get involved in _this_. Maribel and Kaguya's light mood soon faded, as it became obvious just how much of the place we still had to explore. In the darkness, it seemed to stretch on and on ahead of us. The beam from the flashlight dwindled into nothing before it reached the back wall, casting long, skeletal shadows from the shelves.

We moved forward in near-total silence. It wasn't long before I spotted another patch of eyes in the darkness to the side of our path. Another puddle that the Watcher had claimed for itself.

Soon, we passed a third, and then a fourth.

Glancing around uneasily, Maribel said, "If this is a trap, why isn't it attacking yet?"

"Maybe it's out of chimeras," Kaguya said.

"It's waiting to see how far we'll go," Mokou said. She had her teeth gritted as she walked, and was staring straight ahead, trying to ignore the eyes dotting the darkness behind and around us. "The farther we get from the door, the harder it is to escape. If you want to turn around, now's the time."

"This might be the best chance we get," I said.

"Yeah, great." Raising her voice, Mokou announced, "Guess we'll just keep walking into this trap!" to the warehouse in general.

"Mokou," Kaguya said, "keep your voice down."

"What, you think it hasn't noticed us yet?"

The conversation tapered off and we pushed onward, but not for long. Soon, the flashlight beam found the back wall of the warehouse. Most of it was lined with shelves full of chemicals, stacks of shipping pallets, and even a few disused forklifts. As she swept the beam across, though, we saw a familiar shape.

"Mister Ishimori!"

Maribel rushed forward, and we all trailed after her. Yuuta was indeed there, kneeling near the back wall. Or he had been knelt there, I should say. He'd been tied up quite well, with some kind of plastic cabling gagging him, and cords tying his wrists and ankles together. He was dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of plaid boxer shorts, both of which were ragged and stained. He was pale, his skin had raw spots on it, and he looked like he'd lost a few pounds, but he was alive.

Yuuta squinted back against the light, but immediately started struggling for our attention. He jerked and strained against his restraints, giving a series of muffled yells through his gag. They didn't stop as we approached, and he looked up at us desperately.

"Hold on a second," Mokou told him, and to the rest of us, said, "Who has a knife?" Blank stares answered her. "Who the hell doesn't carry a knife?"

"People who don't have to gut their own dinner," Kaguya said, and approached Yuuta. "Please hold still, sir."

She raised her hand, and in a silver flash of light, severed the bindings on his ankles. Yuuta flinched back, but held still while she did the same for his wrists. As soon as the cord went slack, he tugged his hands free, and clawed at his gag until he managed to work it out of his mouth. "You would not believe," he said, rubbing at the spots on his wrists where he'd been tied, "how happy I am to see you."

"It's nice to see that you're alive," Maribel said, crouching down to help him work the cord off of his legs. "Are you okay?"

"I… I have seen better days. That _thing_ had me locked up this whole time. It… how long has it been?"

"Since it took you? About a week and a half," I said.

"You knew about it?"

"You were reported missing or dead, yes. We investigated your place, even. I'm… afraid we might have left it in a worse condition than we found it."

Under the circumstances, Yuuta did not seem particularly concerned about property damage. "It had me in that basement for, for forever, and then it brought me here and tied me up, and I didn't know if it was going to kill me, or… It, it's not just that thing on the screen. It can come out of there, and it's this..." He did a completely meaningless gesture toward the air. He was babbling now, on a complete tangent of his own. I supposed that I wouldn't have been the best conversationalist after a week and a half of being held captive by a monster. " _Thing_ , and it just wants to dissect things and—"

"That's all really interesting," Mokou said, raising her voice to cut him off, "But do you think maybe we can have this conversation outside? Away from the puddles of eyes?"

"Yes, that's the first good idea I've heard since… well, I haven't heard any good ideas lately. Let's get out of here, please."

Maribel helped him up, and we looked back toward the front of the warehouse. The still-open front door was barely visible as a tiny rectangle of dim light in the distance. On either side, there were now scattered patches of eyes watching us, dotting the darkness like fireflies.

That was when I heard the first noise from within in the warehouse. The sound of a barrel getting knocked over. It landed with a loud clank that echoed through the cavernous building, then a low rumble as it rolled along the floor. A few seconds later, this was followed by a low, guttural roar that shook the shelves around us.

A howl answered it. Something let out a shrill, buzzing noise, _above_ us. It was a seconds-long explosion of noise, with at least a dozen different species chiming in. Like somebody had dumped an entire zoo in here to fight for the title of King of the Animals.

"Oh no," Mokou said, in mock surprise. "Looks like it really was a trap."

"Is that why it put me here? I was _bait?_ " Yuuta asked.

"That's our theory, yes," I said.

"You knew it was a trap and you came anyway?"

"We know what we're doing. Maribel and Kaguya here are professionals."

Kaguya chose that exact moment to announce, "Remember, Mokou, you only have three points on me. One mistake now could ruin you, hmm?"

"What does that mean?" Yuuta said nervously.

"They're, um, competing to see who can kill the most of these things. They have a bet."

"... ah."

"Alright, hey, everybody pipe down," Mokou said. "Princess, stand on the other side of me. We're about as far from the puddles as we can get, so might as well fight here. You other three, stay behind us, close to the wall. If you see something coming, shout."

We all agreed, and we waited. It was a little maddening. All around us, we could hear the noises of the chimeras moving—the hiss of flesh dragging across the floor, heavy thudding footsteps, drums getting shoved aside, and the click of hooves and talons. Our little circle of light seemed less and less significant, and while Maribel shifted the flashlight beam around, she could only catch the occasional flashes of movement in the distance.

They weren't charging at us, I realized. They were _encircling_ us. They might have been animalistic, but they had enough intelligence to know that we were cornered. They could afford to take a little extra time. The only drawback would be more mouths competing to eat us when it was all over.

When they were gathered, they edged in slowly. Claws and talons tapped on the cement floor, and shelves groaned as massive animals pushed them aside. Maribel was in a panic now, whipping the flashlight side to side to search for threats, illuminating dozens of bestial faces glaring at us hungrily from the dark. The stretched out in front of us beyond the beam of the flashlight, a grunting, snarling sea of monsters.

They went still, as the last few chimeras settled into position. We went still, Maribel, Yuuta, and I barely daring to breathe.

"Come on," Mokou said, as her fist burst into flames. "If we're going to do this, let's get it over with."

She leapt forward, plowing that flaming fist into the wall of monsters in front of us. A collective roar went up through them, and the chimeras charged in to complete the trap.

* * *

I'm not going to write a full description of the fight against the chimeras. Not because I don't _want_ to, but a blow-by-blow account would be about fifty pages, and the whole thing is a confused blur in my memory anyway.

An endless series of mismatched animals, like the entire supporting cast of _The Island of Doctor Moreau_ , rushed forward. In the poor lighting, it was a nightmarish sight. Nothing but half-glimpsed claws, pincers, and fangs, with the glint of light reflecting from dozens of eyes. Mokou and Kaguya both let loose with everything they had, forming two semicircular arcs—one short-ranged burst of fire, like a flamethrower, and a spray of rainbow-colored energy projectiles. The chimeras were more durable than that, and this only drew a chorus of shrieks and growls from them.

And then, they were upon us.

Once the fight started in earnest, I had no hope of keeping track of what was going on. The beam of Maribel's flashlight whipped around wildly, and the only other illumination was Mokou and Kaguya's attacks, providing brief, strobe light-like glimpses of the melee. The things it highlighted were truly horrifying—the briefest glimpses of grasping claws, saliva glistening in fanged mouths, and winged things flapping through the dusty air. Only the fact that the chimeras evaporated within seconds of dying stopped us from being buried under a pile of corpses.

Logically, I know that the fight only lasted eight minutes and twenty-one seconds. In my mind, though, it was an eternity. Maribel, Yuuta, and I were left ducking back from dozens of desperate attacks. At one point, something lunged past Maribel and swatted the flashlight out of her hand, leaving it shining uselessly along the floor meters away. A smaller chimera, something airborne, swooped down and lashed its claws at me. Thanks to useless reflexes, I threw my arms up to protect my face, and got my forearm clamped in a vice-like grip for my trouble. Yuuta telekinetically ripped the thing off a few seconds later, but it still left long claw marks up my forearm as it fell away. Another time, some kind of whip-like tentacle caught Maribel's ankle and yanked her off her feet, leaving her screaming as she was dragged off into the horde of chimeras. In a wave of fire that drove them back under its heat, Mokou dove in after her. She pulled Maribel free a few seconds later, with the still-twitching remains of the tentacle wrapped around her ankle.

One by one, the chimeras fell. They weren't showing any self-preservation now, no drive to avoid Mokou and Kaguya's attacks. If they thought they could have killed us by burying us under their bodies, I think they would have tried. Likewise, Mokou and Kaguya had no time for dodging or targeting individual monsters. They only stood between them and us, sending out huge, sweeping attacks that would fry or perforate a dozen of them at once. In a rare extended flash of light, I saw a long spear-like horn pierce straight into Mokou's rib cage; Mokou only grunted and incinerated the creature with a burst of fire. More unsettling, though, was the fact that I could already see the blood from dozens of earlier wounds glistening on her shirt.

I hadn't noticed that the crowd was thinning out until I realized that I could see the skeletal shadows of shelves past the few survivors. The very last one was some kind of ape-like creature that swung along the rafters. It dropped down within centimeters of us, and Maribel and I had to scramble away before a single shot from Kaguya popped its head like a balloon. It fell heavily to the ground.

And suddenly, everything was silent except for the sounds of Mokou and Kaguya panting for air. After the clamor of the battle, the stillness felt oppressive. I strained my ears, listening for the sound of something slithering its way toward us in the dark, but nothing else was moving.

"Think that was all of them?" Mokou said. She raised a new flame high into the air, illuminating our surroundings.

The floor was littered with dozens of spent ofuda, blackened and twisted after delivering their payloads, strewn around like dead leaves. Peppered between them were small puddles and splatters of blood—not dissolving to mist, I slowly realized, because it wasn't the chimeras' blood, it was _our_ blood.

We'd all seen better days. Mokou and Kaguya both had big rips and smears of blood over their clothes where they'd failed to dodge attacks. I think any mortal going through what they had would have died a dozen times over. Their hair was matted and sweaty, and Mokou's hands were still trembling in an adrenaline rush. We three noncombatants weren't much better. Even in the dim light, I could see that my arms were a patchwork of scratches and bruises, with a few deeper gouges where that claw had dragged across them. Maribel didn't look much better. We probably, I dimly realized, needed to go to a hospital to bathe in antiseptics and get a few stitches. Assuming we could find some way to explain how we got so many claw marks. _"Well, you see, doctor, my friend bet me two thousand yen that I couldn't fill my shirt with feral cats, and..."_

Mokou looked back to Yuuta. "You said that thing had you locked up, right?"

"Yes, it did."

"What's it look like? Where is it? I'd just as soon finish this here and now."

"It's..." Yuuta turned to look toward one of the closer patches of eyes. Hesitantly, like he really wasn't looking forward to the experience. "It... lives in the eyes. Or on the other side of them. I don't know. It sort of… folds out of them, and it hurts your eyes to look at it."

"… so you'd know it when you saw it, right?"

"Yes, I… suppose I would."

"Great, lead the way. We're killing this thing tonight."

Yuuta looked like he had some reservations about this plan, but in his condition, he didn't have the willpower necessary to face down a charging Fujiwara no Mokou. He hesitantly moved to the front of the group and led us toward the nearest puddle. "This one is where it's been coming and going," he said.

As we walked in the darkness, I hanged back a little, taking up the rear of the group. Venomous thoughts whispered in my head. This was the moment I'd been waiting for, they said. It was dark, and Maribel had her back to me. I had a gun in my hand. Not even Mokou would be able to realize what was going on quickly enough to intervene. I could make Maribel suffer as much as she deserved to, and nobody could stop me. I was barely even aware that I was raising the gun until I felt my fingers cock it, locking the hammer into place with a single, near-silent click.

You know how when you have a dream, you feel yourself performing actions, and you might even think a little, but there never seems to be much relationship between what you think and what you do? How your body just pilots itself, driven by your subconscious or whatever, and you're left trying to make sense of your actions after the fact? (If you're a lucid dreamer, I guess this doesn't apply to you. Please do your best to imagine.)

That's what it felt like. I stepped forward behind Maribel. I wrapped one arm around her neck, trapping it in the inside of my elbow and giving a warning squeeze. My other hand raised the pistol, and pointed it to her temple.

Maribel jerked at the first touch, then stiffened up when she felt the gun pressed to her head. "Um, R-renko…?"

"I know how to stop this thing," I heard somebody say, in my voice. It was two or three seconds later before I realized that it was me.

Mokou and Kaguya both looked back over their shoulders, and froze when they saw us. Kaguya's face held shock, while Mokou's was more… 'oh great, more bullshit to deal with.'

"Renko," Kaguya said softly. "You should point that somewhere else."

I pressed the gun in against Maribel's head to demonstrate my resolve, the way desperate bank robbers always do in movies. "Didn't you hear him? It's in the eyes. We've been fighting it this whole time, and we haven't even seen it. We can't defeat it. Neither of you can."

I gestured with the gun, and in response, they reluctantly parted. I started dragging Maribel toward the puddle, without taking my eyes off of them for a second. Kaguya was looking on in shock, Yuuta confusion, and Mokou was just trying to stay as close as she could without driving me to pull the trigger.

"And what's that have to do with attacking Maribel?" Mokou said.

"A sacrifice. It already took one person. It wants more. If Maribel's our traitor, we don't lose anything. If she's innocent, it might be satisfied and leave everybody else alone from now on. Either way, we're down a youkai, right?"

"Renko..." Maribel said, gasping between the pressure at her throat. "W-why are you doing this?"

I didn't actually think that sacrificing Maribel to the Watcher would change anything, of course. It was all a lie, just something to deter Mokou and Kaguya from killing me on the spot. I wanted the youkai to kill her, though. Just shooting Maribel wouldn't be enough. She had to know it was coming. She had to know that I did it, and why. It was only right and proper.

"Because you deserve it," I said, venomously. I could no longer even feel my lips moving, let alone control what they were saying. I was having so much trouble concentrating that I could have passed out then and there, but my grip on Maribel didn't relax for a second. "You're the one who brought these things here. You're the one who keeps stumbling into weird dimensions and needing rescued. Don't you think it would be better for both of us if you just died?"

"And you really think we're going to let you do that?" Mokou said. She'd paused a few meters away, the closest she seemed comfortable with while I had that gun to Maribel's head.

"I'm the one who brought you in," I said. "You answer to me, not Maribel. Back off or I'll kill her now."

"You're speaking nonsense," Kaguya said gently. "Put the gun down, Renko."

I'd reached the edge of the puddle now. The eyes stared up at me with the same blank disinterest that they always did. I pressed the gun in more tightly to Maribel's temple, ignoring Kaguya. "Maribel, on the count of three, I'm going to let go of you. You're going to step into the puddle."

"R-renko, please..."

"If you try to run away, I will shoot you. One."

"Renko, this is your last chance," Mokou said.

"Two..."

I relaxed my grip on Maribel. Half a dozen things happened at once.

In a blur of motion, Mokou hurled something at me. The moment I took to realize what had happened was enough for Maribel to shove away from me, sending me off-balance. The red ofuda that Mokou had thrown slammed into my face like a brick, and smoke boiled out. Pain exploded through my head, feeling like somebody was going through my brain and ripping all the synapses apart. My vision faded away, and I felt myself falling backward. Something surged up and grabbed my arms like a steel vice, yanking me backward. I heard distant, muffled shouting.

Everything went black.


	20. Entity File 5a: Youkai Chimeras

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #5a  
Youkai Chimeras**

 **Type:** Youkai  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** None.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** n/a  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** Multiple incidents and locations.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Vulnerable to youkai extermination tools.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Intelligent animal.  
 **Size:** Ranging from the size of a large dog to the size of a rhinoceros.  
 **Other Notes:** The youkai chimeras were projections of the chimeras that existed on the space station TORIFUNE (Entity File #5, Case File #25), brought into being from Maribel's residual fears of the incident. Being youkai, this made them more aggressive than what we saw of their 'mundane' counterparts, and we also encountered a far greater variety of youkai chimeras than TORIFUNE could likely have sustained. They ranged from comparatively harmless to absolutely terrifying combatants, but they weren't particularly harder to kill than normal animals. When the normal animals in question are sometimes tigers and gorillas, though, that isn't much of a consolation.

Despite showing no signs of human-level intelligence, the youkai chimeras were not simple animals, either. Their actions suggested that they were somehow being controlled by the Watcher (Entity File #9), and on some occasions they displayed an ability to coordinate their actions and prioritize attacking undefended enemies. It is unknown if they inherited this intelligence from the regular chimeras, or if they gained it as part of being youkai.

We don't know how many youkai chimeras were created. Since evidence would suggest that almost all of the chimeras were eventually rounded up and controlled by the Watcher, we can hope that they were all eliminated. However, in the weeks following the Noguchi Amphitheater attack, multiple sightings of large animals in the Kyoto were reported. It's possible that one or more youkai chimeras are still loose. If you happen to encounter one and don't have any youkai extermination tools on hand, I'd suggest calling Animal Control.


	21. Entity File 6: Yuuta Ishimori

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #6  
Yuuta "Professor Phantasmagoria" Ishimori**

 **Type:** Human  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Psychokinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Psychic.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** n/a  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** n/a  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human  
 **Size:** Human  
 **Other Notes:** Yuuta Ishimori is a stage magician and professional psychic, going by the stage name of Professor Phantasmagoria. Surprisingly enough, his abilities are legitimate.

Yuuta declined my request to interview him about his powers, so this report will be based entirely on my firsthand observations and the information page on his website.

Yuuta's psychic powers appear to be naturally occurring, similar to my grandmother Sumireko. (Entity File #1) According to his website, he discovered these abilities when he was eight years old, and perfected most of them before he was eighteen. Afterward, he became a professional stage performer rather than attempt to bring formal scientific attention to his abilities for the betterment of mankind. I feel like that says a lot about his character.

His displayed abilities include reading minds, inducing a state similar to hypnosis, pyrokinesis, and psychokinesis. His pyrokinetic and psychokinetic abilities are fairly weak compared to other examples, but he compensates for it with strong mental abilities. As his hypnosis was apparently strong enough to induce Maribel to subconsciously exert her powers, I would recommend exercising caution around even consensual uses of his abilities.


	22. Chapter 14

Do you know what happens when you start up a computer? Any computer, really. Let's say a phone, just as an example.

It all starts with the processor. The processor is in charge of performing all the calculations for the computer, but it starts out not knowing anything. Its first job is to check the ROM and load the programming there. At this point, it usually performs some basic self-tests to make sure that nothing is failing. Then, it will load a small program from the permanent memory, called a boot loader. The boot loader will load the kernel of the operating system into the computer's memory.

This is only to get the most basic functionality, though. The operating system itself is little more than an interface between the hardware and software components. It will usually spawn several more layers of task schedulers, controlling processes, hardware abstraction layers, and drivers on top of itself, all needed to make the operating system more robust and useful. From nothing but the processor, the computer slowly builds up to more and more complex functions, until everything is in place.

That's what recovering from the ofuda was like for me.

I don't think I was ever fully unconscious. The first thing I remember is a single sensation, a distant throbbing pain in my head. My actual awareness of it was slow to build up, and my thoughts were abstract and unfocused. I could form no opinion on this pain or remember where it came from. I had only my lizard brain instincts to guide me, and they told me: curl up, because you're vulnerable.

I did. This brought more sensations with it, the feeling of something soft, lumpy, and damp rubbing against my clothes. This coaxed some thoughts out of hiding. This wasn't my bed, I knew. My bed was soft and warm. I was somewhere wrong. I didn't feel safe. How had I gotten to this cold, uncomfortable, unsafe place?

I tried to open my eyes, but the pathways from my brain to my eyelids felt tangled and treacherous. I reached up with a trembling hand and touched my forehead. There wasn't a wound there. The pain was only in my head. Like a bomb had gone off in my brain.

My fingers brushed against the brittle, burnt remains of the ofuda on my forehead, and I remembered. Dragging Maribel toward the puddle, threatening to shoot her, the puddle rushing up to grab me...

Adrenaline speared through my heart, and I jolted back to full consciousness. With a gasp, I jerked up to sit upright, and my eyes flew open.

Just in time for the tip of the pistol to settle into place against my forehead.

"Two hostage situations in one day," I heard my own voice say, from above. "How exciting. I'd suggest that you lay back down, Renko."

Without twitching a muscle anywhere else, I looked up to get a peek of my captor. It was a white being of softly glowing energy, like the abstracted shape of a person without the fine details. There was no line where her clothes ended and her body began, no texture to the hat on her head, and the details on her face were fuzzy, as they melted away into mist near the edges. There were two concave spots on her face where her eyes should have been, but there was nothing there.

But they were shaped like my face, my clothes, and my hat. This person or creature, whatever it was, looked like me and spoke in my voice.

I stared for a moment, and at an insistent little push from the gun, laid back down.

We were in what looked like a small building. The walls were corrugated tin held up by wooden supports, with long streaks of corrosion where water had gotten in. In a few spots, holes had been eaten through it, showing spots of sky outside. Tools were leaned in the corners and hanging from the walls—a heavy loop of rotten-looking rope, a bulky old flashlight, a dull machete, one of those heavy-duty deep sea fishing rods. Emptied food cans were piled in one corner next to a generator, and a mess of cords led from it to a bare light bulb on the ceiling and an ancient CRT television. Below me was the lumpy, slightly soggy old mattress that I'd felt when I woke up.

Outside, I now realized, I could hear the ocean.

This only left me with about thirty questions.

"Who are you?" I said. Talking made my head throb in pain.

"Never had much use for a name. Be quiet."

"Why do you look like me?"

"It's not important. Now _shut up_ and listen carefully. There's a door behind you. When I tell you to, you're going to stand and walk outside. There's nowhere to go, so I wouldn't recommend you try to run. Once we're out there, you're going to use those abilities of yours to tell me where we are and how to get back to Kyoto from here."

"... and then what?"

"And then, I'm going back to Kyoto, and you can stay here and die."

"Is that really supposed to convince me to cooperate with you?"

"It is if you'd prefer to die later instead of now. Now, stand up."

I hesitated for a few seconds, but the gun was still hovering centimeters from my face. Moving slowly, I peeled the burnt ofuda off of my forehead and rose to my feet. We walked outside.

I could immediately see why she'd said it wasn't worth trying to run. We were on an island, it turned out. An island that was as unimpressive as the building we'd come out of. It was barely more than one or two thousand square meters of rock sticking out of the ocean. There was a thin layer of dirt clinging to it, but nothing hardier than grass and a single scraggly tree had managed to grow on it.

In every direction, all I could see was ocean.

"That's far enough," she said. "Tell me where we're at."

I looked at the sky. What I saw was disheartening enough that I forgot I was supposed to be answering her until she threatened me again. "We're northeast of Kyoto," I said. "Far to the northeast."

"How far?"

"About two thousand kilometers?"

She grumbled. "Just tell me what direction to civilization."

"I don't know."

"I thought you were supposed to be a 'human GPS'?"

"I know my own coordinates and the time. I haven't memorized the location of every island in the Pacific Ocean." Not wanting to go too far in antagonizing the angry glowing lady with a gun, I added, "We're probably near the Kuril Islands, and this place isn't large enough to be somebody's permanent residence. I'm sure there's a settlement within a day's sailing in _some_ direction. Or, if you're really patient, you can swim west for a few weeks. Russia is over there somewhere."

There was no response, but I couldn't hear any movement behind me. "Not leaving?" I said.

"I'm thinking."

A few minutes passed. There weren't any birds around, I noticed. No boats within sight, either. Neither of them boded well. We probably weren't too close to the mainland.

"Well. We're stuck here," she said.

I dared to slowly turn around and face her, with my hands still raised. She scowled and leveled the gun right between my eyes, but didn't stop me. I took the opportunity to inspect her again, and reassured myself that I hadn't imagined her appearance. She really did look like me, if I were made out of energy and glowing.

"I might be able to help more if you could tell me what's going on," I said. She didn't reply, and I continued. "The Watcher brought me here, didn't it? That thing in the gaps?"

"I was unconscious at the time. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Then we should compare notes. Try to figure out what's going on."

"I don't see why I should."

"We're trapped here. What else are we going to do while we wait to starve to death?" After a few seconds, she hadn't answered, but neither had she told me to shut up. I pressed on. "... you're one of them, aren't you? A youkai."

"It's not like there are many glowing humans."

"You were... you were the voice in my head."

"And what makes you say that?"

My mind was in overdrive now as I put the pieces together. "The past week, it was like I couldn't even think right. Something else was doing my thinking _for_ me. That... that's why we're both here, isn't it? You came here with me, because you were in my body. You were... _possessing_ me."

"Oh, good job," she said sarcastically. "You're just as smart as I thought."

Nausea churned in my stomach now. Nausea, and a growing rage. Removing the ofuda from the TV, the horrible thoughts about Maribel, that feeling of horror I'd felt as my own body turned against me... she was the source of all of it. I would have leapt at her then and there if she didn't have a gun. "You tried to make me kill Maribel."

"Mmhm."

" _Why_?"

She had no eyes, but I still felt like she was giving me a thoughtful gaze. She knelt down and placed the gun on the ground, without taking her attention off of me for a second. In a surprisingly fast movement, she stepped forward. I jerked back, as the glowing white cloud filled my vision. Tendrils of cold worked their way into my body, like icicles running through my veins. For just a second, I was left standing there in confusion, once again alone on the island. My thoughts blurred, and... "Because, Renko," I said. "I'm a youkai."

I walked over and picked up the gun, still talking to myself. "I feed on emotions. You know that much. I'm not so big on dread, though. I like the fear of betrayal. Paranoia. Heartbreak. They're wonderful. You should know, you've inspired enough lately." I pulled the magazine out of the gun, checked to make sure there were bullets in it, and walked back toward the shack.

By now, my body was moving completely on its own, piloted independently of my brain. But the way it happened, it felt... natural. If I hadn't been paying attention, it would have been like any other time I'd walked without being fully aware. Like I was short on sleep or something. And yet, no matter how I tried, no force of will could get me to stop.

"You're not the only host I've been using, though. Do you know what I've done, when I'm not spending time with you? I've ruined marriages. I've made parents threaten to kill their children. Each one made me just a little stronger. That first night in the amphitheater, I possessed a girl and stuck with her after she escaped. It took me two days to influence her enough to insult her boyfriend. Now, look at me. Even with you actively resisting, I can make you do whatever I want.

"Maybe I can even decide..." I raised the gun and casually cocked it. I pivoted it around and pointed it at myself, my thumb on the trigger. I leaned into it until it touched my forehead, grinning the entire time. "That you've outlived your usefulness. _Boom_. Don't think I haven't thought about it. Your attempts to tell the others about me were... inconvenient. I should kill you and get you out of my hair."

I stood there, facing down the gun and desperately, futilely trying to drop it. She deflected my every burst of resistance back into complacency with thoughts indistinguishable from my own. _This is okay. I deserve this. Better for me to die here than to hurt Maribel again._ If she made me pull the trigger, I'd die with a serene smile on my face, unable to even show authentic emotion in my final moments.

After a five-second eternity, I pulled the gun from my head and gave it an underhanded toss toward the shack. A slight tingling sensation spread through my brain, a touch of cold near my chest... and then, I regained control of my body. She stood before me again.

I gasped in shock and hunched over, shuddering and wheezing for air. She smiled down at this reaction. "Unfortunately for me," she said, "I do feed on human emotions, and you're the only human around. You're useful to me for a bit longer, at least."

"You're..." My whole body was trembling, and I was on the verge of tears. "Y-you're a _monster_."

"Well, yeah, that's the idea. If you don't like it, why don't you put that big brain of yours to work figuring out how to get off of this rock? I'll be in the shack."

* * *

Not that there was any way I was going to go into the shack with her in there. Not after... that. Never in my life have I so badly wanted to punch somebody in the face. Even if that face was shaped like my own.

So, instead, I walked the island and tried to think my way out of the situation. It was hard to concentrate, with everything else. My mind kept flashing back to the warehouse, and the look of terror as Maribel realized I was holding the gun to her head. It brought a bitter, unclean feeling to my stomach. Even now, Maribel probably thought that had really been me. I hated it. I couldn't stop obsessing about how I'd explain the situation to her when I got back.

So, I tried to focus my attention on something more productive. I watched for any sign of human inhabitants. It was dark now, but the light of the moon and the stars was just enough to see by. The stars overhead were spectacular, actually, with the full Milky Way visible. It was a view that didn't exist anywhere on mainland Japan anymore. … it didn't for a moment make up for situation, but it helped calm me down, at least.

It was two hours, forty-eight minutes, and nine seconds before I saw any sign of civilization at all.

It was a series of blinking lights on the distant horizon. After a few seconds of staring at it, I worked out that it was a boat, and then that it was a _big_ boat. This news wasn't as welcome as it could have been. It was a cargo ship. If it had been a small fishing boat, I might have been able to get their attention by lighting a fire or something. The floating building I was seeing, though, didn't need to have anybody on watch. Its course had probably been plotted months ago, adjusted to the centimeter in realtime with satellite telemetry. If there was anybody on it, it was a skeleton crew to discourage piracy. I still watched it for four minutes, until the distant blinking lights faded away over the horizon.

I took stock of the resources on the island, but they didn't lead me anywhere. The shack might have enough wood to make a raft, but that would be a last resort. I could probably find some way to chop up the one tree and set it on fire, but the odds of anybody seeing it seemed very slim. I was stranded in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn't even tell myself that Maribel, Mokou, and Kaguya were coming to my rescue. After my behavior in the warehouse, they were probably telling themselves that they were better off without me.

I was stranded on a rock in the ocean with a murderous youkai, and help was very far away.

When the exhaustion of a long day caught up with me, I headed inside to sleep. One more thing became obvious.

The backpack was here.

The backpack, with most of the supplies we'd brought to the fight in the warehouse. The youkai was practically sitting on the thing to keep it away from me. I was only able to talk her into reluctantly giving me my phone, and only that after she confirmed that it wasn't getting a signal. It didn't take me long to figure out why she was guarding it so jealously: among other things, it contained Mokou's spare youkai extermination ofuda.

So, I'd found a goal—get my hands on the ofuda. For the time being, though, I slept.

* * *

I slept for... about an hour and a half, at least. That was when I was woken by my youkai twin talking to somebody, with her voice lowered.

"... would be willing to take me back to Kyoto... of course, you can keep Renko. I can find plenty of other humans to work with, myself. I could even bring you more. Wouldn't that be nice?"

I was sleeping on my stomach, but opened my eyes and glanced to the side without moving. She was bent over the old television, bargaining frantically with it. Onscreen: Familiar, eye-filled darkness.

"Are you even listening?" she continued, still trying to bargain with the Watcher. "Here, just hold still and I can..." She stepped forward to try reaching into the television.

Instead, something sort of... unfolded from the TV. Flickering surfaces extended through the air, in ways that hurt my brain to look at. It grew, out and over and _around_ me, in ways that human language isn't really prepared to express except in mathematical terms.

Imagine it like this: You are a two-dimensional person in a two-dimensional world. Like a drawing. You, and everybody you know, are flat creatures that can only go in four directions, within the paper's surface. The idea of going up _out_ of the paper, or down _into_ it, are alien concepts to you. Then, one day, a three-dimensional human reaches into the drawing. You, in your two-dimensional glory, could only see a small chunk of the human. You'd see a cross-section. From your perspective, they wouldn't even necessarily be connected. Maybe you'd just see a few slices of fingers floating through the air, connected by a hand that exists outside of your frame of reference. What's worse, that human could approach you from the mysterious third dimension, tapping at your picture, poking at you from angles that you couldn't even perceive.

The Watcher was like that except, you know, less whimsical. It unfolded through the air like a graphical glitch in an old game, curving surfaces and jagged geometric shapes made out of a black, organic material. They didn't look connected, and with each movement, they shifted around, with some seeming to phase out of existence and others popping up.

From the thin air, a limb appeared. A long, thin thing, black flesh stretched across knobbly joints. It was something I'd only seen once before, but still revisited in my nightmares every now and then: The limb that Maribel and I had encountered in my bathroom, the weekend of the attack in the amphitheater. While I watched in bewilderment, it stretched out toward me. Before I could think to move, it wrapped around my ankle and hefted me into the air.

"H-hey!" I stammered. "What are you...?!"

Another limb lashed out, and another. Soon, I was strung up between the things, squirming in protest.

"It isn't much of a conversationalist, I'm afraid," the glowing youkai said, smirking at my predicament.

"What is it _doing_?!"

"Beats me. You kids have fun, though."

More limbs reached out of the air, restraining and supporting me until I was enveloped by them, held rigid and unmoving. Once I was paralyzed, one last one appeared. It was a long, delicate thing, with segments of it flickering in and out of existence as it weaved through the air toward me. I tensed up and tried to shrink back from it, but no amount of force would budge me a centimeter.

The tip of the limb pressed to my arm. Its sharp tip sank into the soft flesh on the inside of my elbow, and it cut a long, straight line up my forearm. The skin parted beneath it, and delicate tendrils, thinner than my pinky, pushed out of the air and peeled back my flesh. Layer after layer, my arm parted until it was all on display—skin, fat, blood vessels, and muscles, with bone beneath it. The cut was smooth, painless, and bloodless. It was like the knife was so fine, it had managed to slip in between my cells without even disrupting them. I wasn't even sure if I was more fascinated or terrified as I watched it peel my arm apart like an onion.

When my entire forearm was on display like an anatomy textbook, the Watcher started examining it. It pushed needle-like protrusions into the muscles and sent jolts into them that made them shiver and flex. It teased the capillaries out of my skin and raised them into the air, a net of delicate blood vessels, and watched the liquids propagate through them. It tapped appraisingly along my bones.

The examination was strange, but painless and clinical. In some ways, that only made it more unsettling. It didn't even _care_. I was only a thing to it, an object to be studied.

And then, it was done. It pulled my flesh back back together, and its limbs parted at the tips, spraying the cuts with a mist that smelled of antiseptic. Where it landed, my flesh knit back together seamlessly. In a matter of seconds, I was reassembled.

Its business done for the moment, the Watcher lowered me to the mattress, and its flickering form disappeared back into the television. A few seconds later, it emerged again. Silently, it left two bottles of water and a jar of artificial shiitake on the floor, then disappeared back into the TV.

 _At least I won't starve to death before it's finished with me_ , I thought bitterly. I inspected the items to the best of my ability to make sure they hadn't been tampered with, but they both seemed fine. After drinking one bottle of water and choking down as much cold mushroom as I could, I curled up on the bed and tried to sleep. I didn't calm down enough to drift off until near dawn.

* * *

The next morning, I didn't wake up until about noon. The sun was shining in the cracks in the wall, proving that daybreak had already come and gone. With everything that happened the previous night, I couldn't really feel guilty for sleeping in.

More importantly, I was alone in the shack. The glowing youkai was nowhere to be seen. In my hours of fitful attempts to sleep, I'd started referring to her as the Bright Lady in my head. Because of, you know, being a glowing woman. Referring to her as anything with 'Renko' in it just felt too... personal. Outside, I could hear only the steady beat of waves on the shore.

And laying in the corner, completely unguarded, was the backpack of supplies.

I froze, looking at it in indecision. It had been there when I'd fallen asleep, too. I really would have liked to have pulled the ofuda out of it then, but I'd been too exhausted to accomplish anything if I had. Now... there it was in front of me. Completely unguarded.

I wasn't sure what the plan was, but whatever I decided to do, it would be easier to pull off with the ofuda. The Watcher... that thing was terrifying. I wasn't sure if I could take it on. I could still get rid of the Bright Lady, then seal the television to keep that thing away while I put together a better plan. If I could get a few days without being harassed by youkai, maybe I could figure out a way off this island.

I peeked out the doorway to make sure the Bright Lady wasn't anywhere in sight, then crawled over and started digging in the bag. There wasn't much in there. A lot of what I'd packed had just been cover. On the remote off chance that somebody else had peeked inside, I hadn't wanted them to immediately see the gun. So, it was stuffed with a few extra articles of clothing and a paperback. I was thankful to have them now, but they weren't my goal. I tossed them out onto the mattress, and...

Nothing. I checked in the backpack's other pockets, hoping I might have just stuck them in the wrong one, but those were empty, too.

I was digging through the pile of clothes when my own voice spoke up behind me. "Looking for something, Renko?"

I stiffened up and stopped my search. I'd had my back toward an empty corner when I started. The place probably wasn't even ten square meters, so it wasn't like there were a lot of hiding spots. "Where did you...?"

"I'm a spirit. Being invisible and walking through walls is sort of my _thing_." The Bright Lady walked into view now, peering eyelessly down at me. "You were looking for the ofuda. I hid those. I'm not stupid. I can handle them if I wrap my hands in something, you know. I have a _lot_ of experience at that."

"... ah."

Seeing the confusion and annoyance in my expression, her smile grew. "And now I'm left wondering why I shouldn't break your legs. Maybe it would teach you a lesson. I only need you for your emotions, after all. Letting you walk around apparently just inspires you to cause trouble."

I moved away from the bag and settled into a more comfortable sitting position, moving slowly so as to not give her any reason to think that I was preparing to attack. I could see that she didn't have the gun. Given that she'd shown she could possess me whenever she wanted, this wasn't much of a reassurance. There were worse things than getting shot. "Because you need my help."

"Do I? Do I really?"

"If you want to get off this island, you do. There's no other land in sight. It could take months for a boat to notice us. I think the Watcher chose this place for a reason. Getting out of here is going to be hard. It will be easier with two of us, and if I had to guess, you don't have many practical skills that don't involve possessing people."

"I don't need you if I can convince the Watcher to take me."

"How much luck did you have with that last night? And do you really think it will even come back if you break its favorite test subject?"

She glared daggers at me, but it seemed that my point was made. "Then how do you suggest that we escape? _Together_ , of course."

I'd put plenty of thought into that the night before. Mostly, I'd arrived at a lot of dead ends. "I could probably make a raft out of the materials here, but the odds of it taking us anywhere inhabited are slim, and I don't have any extra food or water. It might be possible to make some kind of transmitter out of the TV and my phone, but I'm not an electrical engineer. We could build a fire to signal for help, but that's a bit of a long shot, since not many boats come by here... Um. I'm still working on it."

"There's an alternative you're not considering."

"What?"

"The Watcher brought you food last night, through one of its portal things, right? It has to be getting that from somewhere."

"I can't just dive through the TV. It was only open for a second or two."

"No, I agree. I don't think I could get through it either, and I've seen what happens when it closes on those chimeras. But, if you were to exterminate the Watcher after it opens the portal, before it has a chance to close it... the portal might stay open, don't you think?"

I almost laughed at the absurdity of that suggestion. "Do you really think I could fight that thing?"

"Well, I'd volunteer, but as you already know, I have trouble handling the ofuda."

"If we did that, though... I'd need you to give them back."

"You would. And that's a problem, because I'm not eager to trust you with the only thing on the island that can hurt me."

"Do you think I'd actually attack you? I'm afraid of fighting one youkai, there's no way I'd try two at once."

"Do you think I trust you to do the right thing after the fight is over? No, I have a better plan. I can possess you. Not while you're using the ofuda, of course, so that's worthless during the fight. But, before I give you to the ofuda, I want to peek into your head. I'll get a nice, long look at your thoughts. If I'm convinced that you're going to be a good girl and do as you've agreed... maybe you can have them."

I slumped at that thought. The memory of that first time I'd realized she was there, watching on in helpless terror as she controlled my body like a puppet... it was going to be haunting me for months. I never wanted to experience it again, but here she was, demanding it. "If you're trying to convince me that I don't want to attack you, you might try being a bit nicer."

"Oh, but I'm not the one in a rush to get off this island. I'm a youkai, Renko. I expect to live a _very_ long time. If it takes a few months for you to decide to cooperate, that's your issue, not mine. Besides, if I get impatient, maybe I can find some materials to make a nice pair of gloves. Then I can take your body, handle the ofuda, and fight the Watcher myself. Take matters into my own hands. Or yours, as the case may be." She leaned in, grinning deviously. "Then I'd arrive back in civilization with a nice body, ready to go. I'm sure Maribel would be relieved to see you alive. Maybe I could break her heart again before I have you shoot her."

There was that urge to punch her damn face again. I could feel my cheeks burn in outrage. She smirked triumphantly, then turned and walked back toward the shack, giving me a dismissive wave over her shoulder. "Take your time to think about it, but if I see you looking for the ofuda again, I might break your arm as a friendly reminder. Oh, and Renko?"

"What?"

"I think the Watcher will be back again soon. Enjoy your little session today, okay? You put out some pretty tasty fear during the last one."


	23. Chapter 15

The Watcher did return that morning. This time, I was outside when it happened, deliberately avoiding both the television and the Bright Lady, who seemed to have claimed the shack as her own. That didn't stop anything. The Watcher's weird, flickering form moved across the landscape, occasionally seeming to jump a few meters in space. Soon, it was hovering over and around me, and it dragged me back inside for another battery of tests.

After four hours of dissecting me, it healed me up again. This time, it left a sack of hamburger buns and two more bottles of water.

Things fell into this new pattern. The Watcher visited twice a day, in the morning and the evening, and spent exactly four hours apiece experimenting on me. Each time, it would leave me some kind of food and some water. The quality of the food varied a lot, but it always seemed to be stuff that you'd find in stores. The worst was probably a time it brought me a still-frozen microwave dinner, which I had no hope of heating up properly. The best was a time it brought me an entire box of protein bars, which soon formed the staple of my diet.

Its examinations didn't hurt, except when it wanted them to.

Calling it 'painless' doesn't really convey the experience, though. The thing poked and prodded at me, occasionally sending me into a panic as it tested nerve endings that were never, ever meant to be touched. Every now and then, it decided that the dissecting me wasn't enough. It would sprout sharp, needle-like protrusions or surgical hooks and sink them into my flesh, drawing miniscule fluid samples or parting the tissue of an organ to peek inside.

It administered tests to me, by holding me paralyzed and asking questions over and over until I answered them. What color would I say an apple is? On a scale of one to ten, how much grief would I feel if my mother were eaten alive by animals? Had I ever experienced pure vacuum, and if so, how many CCs of blood did I hemorrhage? What percentage of my bone mass was composed of minerals derived from eating plant matter of the genus _Prunus_? It was very patient, and very insistent. I tried staying silent, or giving it mocking answers, or begging it for mercy, or insisting that I couldn't answer most of these questions. Every time, it merely waited, repeating the question over and over until I gave my best attempt at an earnest answer.

In between its sessions, I had six hours in the afternoon to myself. I tried to keep busy, if only to give myself something to focus on instead of worrying. I tried to figure out where the Bright Lady had hidden the weapons, but I couldn't be too obvious about it. I walked the shoreline and looked for boats. I took the old fishing rod from the shack and went fishing, using some of the less desirable food as bait. I took quick dips in the chilly ocean to bathe. Most of all, I tried to think of escape plans.

I didn't have much luck with any of these, but it was still better than sitting around and waiting to go mad, and the less time I spent around the Bright Lady, the better.

Three days later, my morning examination with the Watcher was nothing special. It had opened up my chest, folding a section of my ribs aside as neatly and painlessly as opening a cupboard door. It would press a nozzle-like extremity to my mouth and have me inhale a black gas that left a heavy, numb feeling in my chest, until I felt like my lungs would pop. Then, while I held my breath, it would extend a small limb, carefully choose a spot on my lungs, and give it a gentle tap. It would allow me to exhale the gas. It would give me a new blend. Repeat process.

Somewhere around the thirtieth iteration of this, while I was able to breathe freely again, I murmured, "Hey."

The Watcher didn't respond. It rarely did. I'd tried every variation over the days of examination: Begging it to free me, kicking and screaming, stony silence. It seemed to make no difference. It spoke only when it had instructions for me that couldn't be relayed any other way.

I still talked. It helped to keep me distracted from the fact that I could see a significant chunk of my cardiovascular system.

"What are you even testing?" My voice was shaky from the experiments. "What are you looking for?"

No answer. A few more of those nozzle-like extremities appeared and then vanished in quick succession, like it was debating which one to use next.

"What is your goal?"

That same soft, feminine voice answered, coming out of the air around me like the voice of a god. "Gathering of information, collation of knowledge."

It was maybe the third time I'd heard the thing speak outside of questioning me. I was so surprised at getting an answer that it took a moment to figure out my next question. "For what purpose, though?"

The many limbs around me—the ones that weren't holding me up, at least—rose into the air, like they were examining me. "Activities are leading to generation of desireable human emotions."

I took a moment to puzzle through the convoluted grammar. "You're... you're only trying to scare me?"

No answer.

"I don't want to be here. Please, let me go." A non sequitur, but it never hurt to remind the thing while I had its attention.

No answer. It started flicking through nozzles again.

"What kind of youkai _are_ you? This is a weird method of scaring people, don't you think?"

No answer.

I was getting anxious for a response. Even if I didn't learn anything of value, every second I could distract it from testing me was a bonus. "You have to have some reason, right?"

I felt its attention return to me. This time, it hesitated briefly. Then, in lieu of an answer, black tendrils pushed out of the air, snaking down toward me. They disappeared into some unseen dimension as they approached my face. An electric jolt ran through my body, and everything went dark.

* * *

I opened my eyes. Above me was the ceiling of an immense cavern, stretching so far overhead that it might as well have been the sky. From some light source, human shadows as big as skyscrapers were being cast on the walls. The air had the familiar hospital smell of antiseptics and cleaning chemicals, but layered over it was the stench of death.

I gasped and jerked away, but I was rooted to the spot. Looking down, I found that I was laying in a hospital bed. My wrists were restrained to the railings with padded cuffs.

"Maribel," a nurse's soothing voice said from somewhere. "You're having another hallucination. I need you to be calm, okay?"

Something bellowed in the distance. It echoed in the cavern like a cannon blast. I shrank down into the bed, tugging at the restraints. The flesh beneath them was tender, where my wrists had been nearly worn raw by several prior nights of this.

"Maribel, whatever you're seeing isn't real. Do you understand?"

I was breathing more quickly now, my eyes darting around. They focused on the ceiling of the cavern for just a moment, and that's when I realized: It wasn't a cavern. Not exactly. What I'd thought was rock was actually people. They were stacked up to form the walls and ceiling, their flesh grey from neglect and a lack of sunlight. They crawled over each other like worms, moaning.

There must have been millions of them.

I screamed and tugged at my restraints, desperate to run away from here. I heard the now-familiar sound of a syringe being uncapped.

* * *

I opened my eyes. I was in another dark hospital room, and looming over me was a massive creature. I squeaked in fear and jolted back in my bed, before my brain resolved the shape into a man in a biohazard suit. One of the ones with a big bubble helmet, like a spacesuit. I could only see his eyes past the darkened faceplate. "Miss Hearn," his voice said, hollow and echoing through the speaker, "we've determined that you're infected with an unknown pathogen. We're going to transfer you to a quarantine in the Shinshuu Sanatorium. Do you understand?"

* * *

I opened my eyes. Half a dozen doctors were gathered around my bed, having a heated argument. I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, but my throat was dry. At the first raspy noise from my mouth, every eye in the room turned toward me.

* * *

I opened my eyes. Hovering in the air above me, I could see my own guts splayed out. The doctor shuffled them around with his hands, shoving my heart down into a pile of other organs he didn't care about. The entire thing was so realistic, and I was so groggy, it took me six or seven seconds to remember that it was an elaborate hologram. The imaging device above my head hummed, and blue light illuminated the dust in the air as it swept past again. I closed my eyes again just in time to avoid being blinded.

* * *

I opened my eyes. I was back in the room with the Watcher. There were tears in my eyes, and my breath was shaky. "Why did you... show me that?" I said. My voice cracked midway.

It didn't answer. Those black tendrils pulled back from my head, and it started patching up my chest. Pushing a layer of tissue together, it sprayed it with that strange healing mist. The antiseptic smell hung in the air, oppressive and chemical.

* * *

That session seemed to stretch on and on. As usual, the Watcher dropped me back to the ground in the shack, and left behind some food and water before it disappeared back into the TV. I didn't even bother to check the offerings this time. I didn't have the energy. I simply crawled over to the mattress and struggled to gather my thoughts.

It had been the ninth session. I was going into my fifth night on the island. Not even a whole week. Five nights, and I was no closer to finding an acceptable escape plan than when I'd first arrived. Five nights, and no hint of rescue from Maribel and the others.

Five nights, and a lifetime more if the Watcher had its way.

That much was clear now. The Watcher wasn't searching for anything in particular. There was nothing I could show it that would satisfy it. As a youkai, my fear was valuable to it in and of itself, after all. As long as it had that, it had no reason to stop. And Yuuta had survived twice as long. At least now I understood why he'd been such a jittery wreck when we rescued him.

"Your despair is like a fine wine today," the Bright Lady said, fading into existence in the room. She'd taken to traveling the island invisibly when she wasn't talking to me. As far as I could tell, she did this solely so I wouldn't know when she was spying on me. "Or so the saying goes, at least. I've only had wine once. I'm not even a month old, after all."

"I'm really not in the mood," I groaned.

"That only makes your emotions sweeter. A girl's got to eat, you know."

I rolled over, and did my best to pointedly ignore her. It didn't much help. I could still feel her presence in the room, and my restless state of mind didn't make inactivity very satisfying. "The Watcher showed me something today," I finally said.

"Oh? Is that what inspired your little self-pity attack here?"

I ignored her comment. Coming from her, threats and insults were practically small talk. "I think... Mokou was right, wasn't she? All of you, you're all made out of Maribel's fears. The Watcher is her memories of her infection, that whole episode when she got quarantined."

"And that makes you feel guilty, because it's your fault she got infected in the first place."

I winced. That hit a bit too close to home.

She leaned over me, a sharp-edged smile on her face. "Do you want to know where I came from, Renko?"

"The fact that you're even offering makes me suspicious."

"That's very cynical of you. But you still can't afford to say no, can you?"

"Sure I can."

"Then let me put it another way: Why do you think I look like you?"

This time, she was right. If it would get me the answer to that question, I had no choice but to hear her out. I pushed myself up to sitting with grunt of effort. "I guess I don't have anything else to do tonight," I conceded.

"Great. Now, imagine for a moment that you are Maribel Hearn."

"... okay..."

"You are a poor, sad, pathetic thing."

"Don't talk about Merry like that."

"You talk like she doesn't think of herself like that, sometimes. Now are you going to let me finish, Renko?"

I scowled up at her. I wanted to protest further, but... arguing seemed like it would only drag this out. The last thing I wanted to was to give her an excuse to talk any more than she needed to. "Whatever. Keep going."

"You are a poor, sad, pathetic thing," the Bright Lady repeated, and waited to see if I would interrupt again before continuing. "You see things that nobody else sees. You hear things that nobody else hears. You suspect that this is why your parents encouraged you to finish your schooling in Japan when they moved back to their home country. You _know_ it's why you didn't have any friends in high school, because the other children were very open about their reasons. Everywhere you go, and everybody you meet, you know that you'll end up alone, because you're too strange for other people.

"And then you meet a girl named Renko Usami. She's the first person to believe everything you say, and practically your first friend ever. She is just so _wonderful_." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "But—and get this—your entire life has primed you to believe that this can't last. Every moment that you're with Renko, you're worried that you might say something that will drive her off. Every time you have an episode or need her help, you spend the next day worried that you're becoming a burden for her. And the more you come to depend on her, the more you grow to like her... the more terrifying it is to think that some day, she's going to get disgusted and leave you. Like everybody else."

"I wouldn't do that to Maribel."

"Wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

She grinned, and leaned in closer. "You already did worse when you tried sacrificing her to a youkai back in the warehouse. You should have felt her shock when she realized what you had in mind for h—"

Here, the Bright Lady was cut off by me lunging forward and smashing a fist into her face. … unfortunately, she was a selectively intangible being, so it whiffed through her head without effect. I ended up on all fours on the mattress.

It was still very satisfying, I assure you.

We sat in silence for a few seconds, with me trying to hate her to death and her grinning smugly over at me. Awkward.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I finally said.

"Your reaction wasn't enough of a reason?" She pulled back, and rubbed sorely at the spot where my hand had phased through her face. I got a little satisfaction out of that. "Think about it like this: I'm living proof that one of Maribel's worst fears was that you'd get tired and leave her. Everything that happened in the warehouse was like watching her worst suspicions play out in front of her eyes. ... imagine how she must feel now, after living with that knowledge for a week. Imagine how easily you could reassure her if you were there."

"Do you have a point?" I said, resisting the urge to punch her again.

"Of course I do. You said that you're afraid of fighting the Watcher. If you won't do it for your own sake, will you do it for Maribel's?"

She knew what she was doing. She knew exactly what she was doing.

* * *

I had to deliberate for a long while. I knew that I was playing right into the Bright Lady's hands. There was no way that cooperating with her wouldn't come back to bite me sooner or later.

Unfortunately for me, it was still my best option. I had no better idea about how to get off of the island. I hadn't seen a ship for days. Every day that I was here, the Watcher's examinations got a little harder for me to suffer through, and Maribel was left with her last memories of me being a gun to her head. The longer the situation continued, the harder it would be to recover from. If I cooperated with the Bright Lady, things could get worse. If I stayed here, things _would_ get worse.

I accepted her offer the next afternoon.

It was a weird little ritual, being willingly possessed by a spirit who looked like my evil twin. Or, let's face it, essentially _was_ my evil twin. She stepped forward, and that cold feeling was more diffuse this time, like I was sinking into a cold bath. I almost imagined that I could feel her engulfing my brain neuron by neuron.

I stood for a few seconds, waiting. And then, at some point, I became aware that my body was no longer my own.

"You feel so disgusted, Renko. I'm honored. That warms my heart," the Bright Lady said, using my own lips. I stepped forward and gave my hand a few experimental squeezes, like she was getting used to my body again. Trying me on like a new shirt. "Maybe I should just keep you here for a few more weeks and bask in it."

I wanted to say, _"Can we just get this over with?"_ but found my lips entirely uncooperative.

"Hmm... you do feel pretty upset with me. It's a good thing I'm not sensitive, or I might be hurt. I see that you've had a few daydreams about exterminating me, too. Very rude. That's not very reassuring. But you want to get off this island more, don't you?" She deliberated out loud, still using my own mouth to do it. If you've never found yourself saying things that you have no conscious awareness of, it's disorienting, trust me. "Hmm. I'm going to warn you now, Renko. If I give you the ofuda and you try to attack me, you'd need quite a few hits to kill me. That's plenty of time for me to possess you and make you pay for every single one. Do you understand?"

I was already starting to regret making this deal. Even though I'd convinced her to lead me to the ofuda, it didn't look like I'd get any use out of them against her, and I was the one taking on all the risk of fighting the Watcher. I couldn't help but feel like I was playing right into her hands.

Apparently she could feel my anxiety. My body smiled. "Good. It's only a few hours until the Watcher shows up. Let's get to work."

* * *

Along one shore of the island, the beach was a sloped line of rocks, worn smooth by the tides. Here, just above the high tide line, was where the Bright Lady had hidden the ofuda. She walked me to the right spot, then knelt down, lifting rocks and moving them aside. After the first few, I could see that the soil beneath was loose and discolored compared to the rest. A little light digging with my fingernails, and a bundle came into view. The ofuda, wrapped in one of my shirts to keep them clean. Moving carefully so as to not touch the paper directly, she lifted the package and carried it back inside. Then, grudgingly, she gave back control of my body.

There was a single issue with our plan, we'd realized. The Watcher only opened up the gap to bring me food after its experiments. It meant I was going to have to move fast. As soon as it released me from today's examination, I had to be ready to snatch up the ofuda and attack it when it came back to give me food. It wasn't a big additional complication, but this was a plan that already relied on me having to defeat a youkai that I could barely see half the time.

So I sat, I waited, and I worried. I tried to reassure myself that I'd be able to pull it off. Grandma Sumireko had started fighting youkai years before she was my age, after all. Grandma Sumireko was also able to fly and throw telephone poles with the power of her brain, so this was not as relieving as it could have been. I somehow doubted that my ability to tell the time was going to be as useful in a fight against an actual youkai. I'd have to strike quickly and take it out before it could retaliate.

When the TV filled up with that now-familiar eye pattern, I still wasn't ready. I eased back away from it, more anxious than usual thanks to my slowly-mounting adrenaline. The Watcher unfolded from the screen, and I had to force myself to stay rooted to the spot as its limbs stretched toward me, flickering in and out of existence.

They grabbed me. They lifted me up. My hopefully-final examination began.

Logically, I know that the final session lasted four hours, the same as the others. Emotionally, they always felt like an eternity when they were happening, and doubly so today, when I knew that I was going to either die or win my freedom at the end.

Somehow, I suffered through it. I'm not going to go into detail on the last session, because honestly, nothing noteworthy happened during it. It's probably a sad commentary that after a week of two sessions per day, another four hours of being torn apart counted as 'not noteworthy,' but there it is. I survived the experience.

As it lowered me back to the ground, I squirmed in its grip, trying to get some blood pumping to my limbs again. I knew that I wouldn't have much time. Maybe only fifteen seconds for it to put me down, open a gap on the television, retrieve my food, and leave. I landed on all fours, my limbs trembling, and didn't date to waste a second. I crawled over and pulled the stack of ofuda out from its hiding place, under a small pile of clothes near the edge of the room. When I looked back, the Watcher's limbs were already teasing open the gap in the TV screen.

I took one look around the room to orient myself. The Bright Lady was nowhere in sight, but she could be standing invisibly two centimeters from my face and I wouldn't notice. I took a thick pile of ofuda from the stack, then peeled a few off and readied them in the other hand. I braced myself, and prepared to attack.

The Watcher extended its limbs into the television to retrieve my food, and I took that opportunity to strike. I thought it might be distracted, if that was even possible for this thing. Springing across the room, I launched myself into that tangled mess of disconnected polygons. I slapped the first ofuda down against the largest segment of its body, and was immediately rewarded with a burst of heat and acrid white smoke.

The Watcher's reaction to this was perhaps the most unnatural thing about it. There was no scream, no jolt of pain. An almost-imperceptible shiver ran through its body, even as the ofuda clung to its, sending up gouts of smoke as they purified its flesh away. Other than that, it barely even had an immediate reaction.

I took a wary step back as I fumbled to grab another few ofuda off the stack. I was too slow. Some limb, entirely invisible, slammed into my stomach with enough force to knock me backward. I fell onto the mattress, and had barely stopped moving before another unseen limb gripped my left wrist. I slapped an ofuda against it, hoping to burn it off, but nothing happened.

Another limb, this one visible, lashed down and wrapped around my ankle. They hefted me into the air. I kicked and tugged against them, but with no more luck than usual. The main bulk of the Watcher's body started approaching me, with those smooth black surfaces extending forward through the air to block off every avenue of escape.

"I-if you'd just...!" I flicked my free hand to send a few ofuda drifting toward it. The paper was thick, making it hold up pretty well when throwing, but I wasn't really good at this. Only one of them clipped the Watcher's body on a corner, sending up a little puff of smoke. "Let me go home when I asked, we wouldn't be doing this!"

I felt something wrap around my other ankle, leaving one arm and both legs immobilized. Something brushed against my one free arm, and I jerked it away. In response, one of those needle-sharp limbs I'd seen so much during the examinations lashed down, like a bolt of lightning. The tip pierced straight into my elbow, and a wave of numbing pain spread through my forearm. Whatever it did, it wasn't good. The muscles in my arm went slack for a moment, and the stack of ofuda fell to the floor.

"No, nonono..." Another brush against my free arm, but I had bigger concerns. I lashed my hand down, and barely managed to wrap my tingling fingers around a few of the fallen ofuda on the mattress. Without hesitating, I put the full force of my body into yanking my hand up, flinging them at it.

This time, through sheer luck, most of them impacted. The Watcher's full form shuddered, and its many, many limbs flicked up to start clawing at the charms clinging to its body. Where the knobbly appendages touched the charms, they blackened and curled up like melting plastic. Through sheer determination, it still managed to peel a few away and flicked them to the floor. I fished another ofuda off the floor and slapped it onto my other wrist again, and this time it connected with something. The invisible limb jerked away, taking the ofuda with it, and my upper body fell to the bed, no longer supported.

… for about two seconds, until the Watcher apparently decided it had had enough. The limbs around my ankles lifted me higher, hauled me back, and hurled me across the room.

I'll give this to whoever built the shack: it was sturdier than it looked. I guess it would have to be, to stand up to the weather for however long it had. Unfortunately for me, this meant that when I hit the wall, I was the one who came out worse for the wear. The entire building rumbled from the impact. Pain exploded into my chest, and I fell to the cold floor, gasping for air.

I tried to push myself upright, but my left arm now refused to move, and a jolt of fresh pain shot through my chest when I put too much pressure on the right arm. I was able to push myself up just far enough to look across the room. The Watcher had now peeled most of the ofuda off of itself, and the few that were left weren't distressing it enough to stop it. Already, its body was flickering and flowing toward me. Barely a meter past it, I could see the television, still holding the gap leading to my freedom. This thing was probably going to rip me apart, and I'd die almost within reach of my escape route.

This time, it wasn't taking any chances. Another needle-like appendage darted down, and this one pierced into my ribcage. I felt something cold and stinging flow into my chest, and that numbing sensation spread across my body. Limbs wrapped around my ankles and dragged me back across the room.

As it carried me, the Watcher kept me high in the air, out of reach of the pile of fallen ofuda on the mattress. It slammed me down on the floor on the other side of the room, without any of its usual gentleness. Its many limbs and appendages churned in the air above me, in what I hoped was an angry manner. If I'd managed to make the thing's life even one tenth as miserable as it had made mine over the past week, I could feel some satisfaction in my final moments.

And then, I realized: It had laid me down near the rest of the ofuda. The main stack, the ones I hadn't been able to carry with me. Cautiously, I snuck a look at them. The pile of clothes I'd hidden them under was barely a meter out of reach. I pushed myself toward it with my good arm, my entire body feeling numb and heavy from whatever the Watcher had injected me with. The Watcher let me. I think it knew as well as I did that its injection was doing its job. I'd be lucky to maintain consciousness for another few minutes, let alone accomplish anything.

My hand slipped under the clothes. My fingers wrapped around the stack of ofuda. There was no time for aiming or strategies now. With as much force as I could coax out of my numb limbs, I rolled over and chucked the entire stack toward it.

An unbound stack of cards isn't that aerodynamic. Most of them scattered harmlessly, fluttering to the floor. Enough of them, though, slapped against the Watcher's body, plastering a nice cross section of it.

Smoke boiled out. It filled the room and stung my eyes, but I couldn't look away. The Watcher fell into a frenzy, its limbs whipping at the air frantically. It tried clawing the ofuda off, but couldn't muster the coordination to manage it. Its disjointed surfaces convulsed and bubbled in the air as they were torn apart by purifying energies. They were the death throes of an unnatural, bizarre creature.

For just a moment, right there, something about the universe seemed to _bend_. Very briefly, I could see the Watcher's whole form. Its body was a twisting mess, interlocking and weaving through itself to my mere three-dimensional perception. Every bit of its black mass was wreathed in a writhing halo of limbs, with smoking craters where the ofuda were boiling its flesh away. In the center, a single staring, glassy eye.

The eye looked at me, I think, in that last second.

And then, the thing exploded into black mist. It filled the room in an instant, an oily darkness that blocked the light of the dingy bulb above. Like a storm, it whipped up the room's contents, blinding me. Just as quickly as it had appeared, though, it pulled away. The thing flowed into the television, sucked in like a drain. Once again, I was left with nothing but the sound of the waves outside.

Right, the TV! I didn't have time to relax. Already, the gap on the screen was dwindling down, a wound in the universe that was healing now that its creator was dead. I tried standing up, but my limbs weren't cooperating enough to balance. All I could do was slouch-crawl over to the TV. Placing one hand on the floor, I summoned all of my strength, and lunged forward into the void of eyes.

I'd expected some feeling of falling through darkness, or something like that. But, no. The second I passed through the TV screen, I emerged from the cold, humid air of the shack into... cold dry air.

And fell, quite clumsily, onto a concrete floor.

I tried to get a good look around myself, but my vision was blurring from that anesthetic. Shelves towered overhead. It was a storage area of some kind. The back room of a store, maybe. Behind me was what was obviously a break area, a small desk with a TV, a pile of newspapers, and an overworked ash tray.

Before I could see more, the Bright Lady leaned in over me. "I see that you survived."

She'd slipped through the TV while I was fighting, without even a cursory attempt to help. Of course she had.

"I-it gave me..." My tongue was numb. I was slurring everything. I tried pushing myself up, and collapsed to the floor again with a grunt. "Injection. P-please help."

"Oh, some kind of poison? A sedative, maybe? That will make this easier."

She stepped over me and settled down, straddling my stomach. She made no effort to keep her weight off of me, and in my already-weakened state, it was like a stone pressing directly down on my lungs. I strained against it, struggling to breathe. I lifted my hands to try shoving her off of me, but I could only give the weakest pushes.

Only then did my eyes drift down to the gun in her her hands. Grandma Sumireko's gun. _My_ gun.

"Oh, so you finally noticed," she said, following my gaze to it.

"What are you..." Even saying that much made me give a gasp of effort. "D-doing with that?"

"Renko, you're a smart girl." She held it up and pulled the magazine out of it, demonstrated that it was full, and pushed it back in. "I'm sure you knew that things might end like this when you agreed to work with me."

I tried to push away from her, or even shout accusations, but all I could do was squirm and give a sad little noise. More and more of my body seemed to be shutting down from the injection. The room swam around me. The Bright Lady continued. "You were useful, but that last betrayal of Maribel... well, that was very nice. It left me with enough power to possess practically anybody I'd like. I think I could do better than a broke college student, so." She lowered the gun and cocked it, pressing the barrel up against my forehead. "I'm pleased to say that you're worth more to me dead than alive. Any last words?"

I'd like to say that right there, in those last moments, I summoned the willpower to force my muscles into motion and shove her off of me. I mean, that's not what happened, but it's a lot more glamorous than the truth. The truth was that my entire body was now numb, and I could barely move a thing. I tried shouting at her, maybe a nice, 'FUCK YOU,' but all I managed was drooling ingloriously on myself.

"Nothing? Well then. I guess this is where we part ways. Goodbye, Renko."

The Bright Lady pulled the trigger. Fire erupted from the gun. Everything went black.


	24. Entity File 9: The Watcher

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #9  
The Watcher**

 **Type:** Youkai  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Limited creation of space-time anomalies. Creation of bioactive substances. Possible control of animals. Possible direct manipulation of the human nervous system.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Innate youkai abilities.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** Multiple incidents and locations.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** The Watcher only seemed to be able to create gaps on surfaces capable of conveying some kind of illusion—reflective surfaces and electronic screens, mostly. It could be almost entirely avoided with proper avoidance and warding of such surfaces. Vulnerable to youkai extermination tools.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human or higher.  
 **Size:** Unknown  
 **Other Notes:** Even now, at the end of the incident, the Watcher is the only of the youkai that I have trouble describing. It appeared to be an extradimensional being, existing in spatial dimensions beyond the normal three that humans are familiar with. This has a lot of strange implications, and addressing them all is beyond the scope of this file.

The Watcher apparently had some ability to control the youkai chimeras, and used its gaps to move them from place to place. It's entirely possible that it simply shepherded them with pushes, since there's no strong evidence that they were capable of communication. The Watcher used this ability to release chimeras to attack us, and on at least one occasion, to help herd Yuuta Ishimori (Entity File #6) for capture. It's not entirely clear why it did this, but we can make some guesses based on its other behavior. On at least one occasion, it purposely lured us into a dark building and released dozens of chimeras to attack us. I think it's likely that it recognized the threat we represented and was actively trying to kill us.

By nature, the Watcher was driven to experiment on and examine people, with no apparent goal except for provoking fear from its 'test subjects.' To this end, it had a large number of dexterous limbs, some of which were tipped with needles, scalpels, and other tools for performing examinations. It was also capable of producing at least two substances for these purposes: An aerosol that seamlessly healed injuries, and some kind of sedative. Considering its nature, it's likely that both of these substances were supernatural in nature. It's possible that the former could have led to revolutionary advancements in medicine. Sadly, there are no known extant samples. I don't think it would have shared, anyway.

We only know of two people that the Watcher abducted for these experiments, myself and Yuuta Ishimori. In both cases, the captives were taken to remote areas with little chance of escape. As such, although both of us survived our encounters with the Watcher, we cannot rule out the possibility that it had other captives at the time of its death. If so, I can only hope that they'll find their freedom some day.


	25. Chapter 16

I drifted back to awareness slowly, in that way you do when you've had anesthesia. That whole 'deeper sleep than sleep' sensation. At some point, my brain picked up on insistent signals coming from my face. There, every single nerve ending was screaming the same message: I Am In Pain.

I woke up, and immediately wished I hadn't. That pain stuck with me. A nice, full spectrum of it spread across my face, everything from sharp, burning pain to dull, throbbing aches. My entire body was sore, really, thanks to the fight with the Watcher. I felt like I'd survived a ten-round bare knuckle boxing match only to get my face removed with a belt sander. With a noise like a dying cow, I opened my eyes and rolled over.

I was still in the back room of the store, laying on the floor. My whole body was stiff and cold, and I was covered in a sticky, wet substance. My vision was blurry, and it took a few seconds for me to recognize what I was looking at as blood. _My_ blood. I was laying in a small, drying puddle of it. My hair was matted in it. And my hat. My poor hat.

Sore, tired, and anxious, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep, but I knew I couldn't stay here long. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself up to sitting and tried to ignore the new waves of pain that ran through my body. I gave my face a careful, appraising poke. My fingers found it swollen and sore, and one of them brushed against a cut, sending a spike of pain into it. It didn't feel like I was in great condition, but neither did I have a gaping bullet wound in my forehead.

Sitting on the floor about a meter away was an object that I slowly came to recognize as the remains of my gun.

It had seen better days. The entire base of the barrel had shattered, completely severing it into two chunks. Flecks of blue plastic were scattered on the floor around me, mixed in with my blood.

Instead of launching a bullet into my forehead, Grandma Sumireko's gun, made out of aging first generation 3D printer plastic, assembled by a teenager, firing ammo of unknown provenance, and neglected in the bottom of a closet for half a century, had failed catastrophically on its first shot. After I'd packed the gun to protect myself for weeks, it had turned out to be useless, and that was the only reason I was still alive.

The whole thing was ridiculous enough that I could have laughed, if its misfire hadn't tenderized half of my face.

There was no sign of the Bright Lady around. After living with her on the island for a week, I'd gotten used to the idea that she could always be there, invisible and spying on me. This time, it seemed unlikely, if only because she wasn't still actively trying to kill me. I almost regretted that I hadn't gotten to see her look of frustration when the pistol exploded in her hand.

I sat there for a few minutes, letting my head stop spinning, and then forced my aching body to stand up. Shuffling stiffly, I pushed the door open and made my way out of the room.

I was in a convenience store. I'm not sure if that's where all the food the Watcher had brought me had come from, or if it was rotating them, or what. The ceiling lights were off, but a few advertisements were still going, and the coolers were lit. They cast long, creepy shadows across the place. I fumbled in the dark with the door lock for a good minute before it finally opened. Somewhere in the building, an alarm started chirping out a warning. I ignored it and stepped out under the glare of streetlights.

Civilization had never looked so good.

I was pleased to find that I was in Kyoto. Kilometers from home, but I recognized the area, and the sky confirmed my suspicions. It was four AM, so I'd been unconscious on the floor for a few hours. It was a good thing I'd woken up when I did. Another hour or two and the morning shift probably would have found me.

Behind me, the store's alarm went off, screaming for attention. I took off down the sidewalk, and kept walking until I was well out of sight. Only then did I stop for long enough to lean against a lamp post and pull my phone out.

I hadn't had much use for my phone on the island. I'd only used it for a few minutes here and there, futile attempts to search for reception. So, it still had most of its battery left. I turned it on, and it immediately reported full reception. It was the most beautiful thing that I'd seen in my entire life.

I'd gotten as far as pulling up Maribel's number before I hesitated.

The last time Maribel had seen me, I'd had a gun to her head and was threatening to kill her. Would she even want to hear from me now? Would she believe anything I had to say? For all I knew, in the time I'd been gone, she'd sworn eternal vengeance on me or something. (Admittedly, the thought of Maribel swearing eternal vengeance on _anybody_ is kind of funny.)

But, nothing was going to get better if I didn't do anything. I hovered my finger over the dial button, gathered my courage...

And chickened out.

It was better to do this over text, I decided. I could present my whole case at once, and she'd have a short while to calm down before she could reply. Plus, it was four AM. I could send the texts now without waking her up, and they'd be waiting for her in the morning.

Imagine my surprise when I got her first reply within seconds.

* * *

 **Log pulled from the phone of Renko Usami – 15/09/2015**

 **04:12:22 Renko Usami:** Hi, Merry. Um, okay, so, this is going to be awkward. I know that the last time we saw each other, I did and said some terrible things. I'm going to give you what might sound like the most ridiculous excuse ever: I was possessed.

As far as I can tell, for the last week or so, I was possessed by a youkai we hadn't seen before. I'm the one who was removing the wards from the TV. She nearly made me do far worse things before that. I like to think that there's nothing I could have done to stop it, but I don't know if I can forgive myself that easily for almost killing you. I'd known at least since the Fuji trip that something was wrong. By the time I thought to say something, I couldn't even control my own body. I'm so, so sorry.

A lot of things have happened in the past week. I've spent most of it imprisoned by the Watcher, like Yuuta was. I'm back in Kyoto now, though. I had to fight the Watcher to escape. I think I managed to kill it, but I'm pretty beaten up. Probably going to go home and sleep for a week.

If you can't forgive me, I understand.  
 **04:12:54 Merry:** omg Renko!  
 **04:13:01 Merry:** I was so worried  
 **04:13:12 Merry:** are you okay?  
0 **4:13:23 Renko Usami:** I don't know if I'd say 'okay,' but I'm alive.  
 **04:13:51 Renko Usami:** Are _you_ okay? I did kind of have a gun to your head the last time we saw each other...  
 **04:14:00 Merry:** don't worry about the stuff in the warehouse. I know you'd never do that to me  
 **04:14:12 Merry:** actually we were already pretty sure something was wrong with you. before the warehouse, I mean.  
 **04:14:51 Merry:** no offense, but you were acting kind of weird for a while there. Mokou wanted to exorcise you but me and Kaguya wouldn't let her do anything until we were sure we know what was going on. haha WHOOPS  
 **04:15:09 Merry:** i mean i was really upset afterward because I thought I might have made you angry or something but I'm just glad you're okay!  
 **04:15:18 Merry:** really I've been so worried I haven't been able to eat or anything. i just  
 **04:15:26 Merry:** nevermind i'm babbling  
 **04:15:33 Merry:** sorry, it's been a long night  
 **04:15:35 Merry:** um anyway  
 **04:15:51 Merry:** i'm just really glad you're back. i've missed you  
 **04:16:20 Renko Usami:** ... okay, wow, um.  
 **04:16:42 Renko Usami:** This is a nice surprise. I was afraid you'd hate me now or something. I was pretty much ready to beg for your forgiveness.  
 **04:16:51 Renko Usami:** This is the first conversation I've had in a week that wasn't with an eyeball monster or my evil twin. It's kind of nice.  
 **04:17:03 Merry:** evil twin?  
 **04:17:19 Renko Usami:** It's a long story.  
 **04:17:39 Merry:** oh okay. speaking of which, um.  
 **04:17:45 Merry:** one sec, I need to talk this over with Mokou.  
 **04:19:21 Merry:** okay, so, here's the thing  
 **04:19:26 Merry:** we think Kaguya's possessed now  
 **04:20:02 Renko Usami:** Oh. What makes you say that?  
 **04:20:49 Merry:** she woke up a few hours ago and attacked mokou. then she took a lot of my stuff and ran away.  
 **04:21:14 Renko Usami:** To where?  
 **04:21:29 Merry:** we haven't seen her since  
 **04:21:33 Renko Usami:** Oh.  
 **04:21:43 Merry:** it gets weirder. um. When mokou woke me up to tell me all of this I um  
 **04:21:48 Merry:** you know my boundary powers?  
 **04:21:53 Merry:** I can see all of them now  
 **04:21:55 Merry:** like... ALL of them  
 **04:22:08 Renko Usami:** ... can I come over? It sounds like we have a lot to discuss.  
 **04:22:20 Merry:** sure, there's no way I'm getting back to sleep right now  
 **04:22:42 Renko Usami:** Great. I'm about 45 minutes away, so I'll be there soon.  
 **04:22:57 Renko Usami:** Oh, just a warning: I haven't had a real bath in a week and I'm pretty much covered in blood.  
 **04:23:11 Merry:** Renko, as long as you're alive, I don't care.  
 **04:23:28 Merry:** love you~

* * *

Thankfully, even in bustling Kyoto, one doesn't meet many pedestrians at 4 AM. Normally, I would have resented having to walk so far, but under the circumstances, it was very nice. It helped work the last of the anesthetic out of my system, and by the time I was back to our neighborhood, I almost felt like a functioning human being again.

I'd barely knocked on the door to Maribel's apartment when it swung open. "Renko!"

Maribel tackled me into a hug, making every bruise on my back throb in pain. I still returned it as tightly as I could. We held the position for ages. There wasn't much talking. Some sobbing might have been involved. Moving on.

Maribel finally eased out of the hug and took her first good look at me. "You smell like a dead animal wrapped in seaweed," she joked weakly. "What happened to your face, though? Are you okay?"

"I got shot. Kind of." I rubbed my face sorely. It was still throbbing in pain, but at least it wasn't sticky anymore. I felt like half of it was a single giant scab.

"By your evil twin?"

"By my evil twin. Also I got stabbed and thrown across a room by the Watcher right before I killed it. It's like I'm a real youkai exterminator now."

"You're hardly more than a kid, soaked in your own blood, and you barely managed to win a fight with a single youkai by the skin of your teeth?" Mokou said, stepping up behind Maribel. She gave me an appraising look, then a nod of approval. "Which, yeah, is about the level of most youkai hunters I've known. Welcome to the club, I guess."

"It's less glamorous than I'd expected."

"I hear that a lot."

"... hi, Mokou."

"Hey. Welcome back. You look like shit."

"Probably. ... so, uh, what's this about Kaguya being possessed? And... seeing boundaries?"

Maribel shook her head tiredly. "I'm more worried about you right now. Do you need to go to a hospital?"

I looked down at my bloody shirt. "… I probably should, but right now, I'd just like a bath."

* * *

If you've never gone a week without bathing, gotten shot, spent a few hours caked in your own dried blood, and then taken a nice, hot bath... well, I wouldn't recommend going through all of that just for the experience, but it will be the best damn bath of your entire life. I guarantee it.

When I got out, I got my first good look at my injuries. My entire body was covered in deep bruises from the battering the Watcher had given me, and it still hurt to breathe too deep. With most of the blood cleaned off, my face didn't look as bad, but I had some pretty deep cuts, with a bit of a burn across my forehead. I probably needed stitches, and even then, I'd be getting looks in public for a while. Considering how many times I'd expected to die the previous night, this seemed like a fair tradeoff.

Over breakfast, I told them everything that had happened to me, and Mokou and Maribel filled me in on everything I'd missed.

They'd spent the entire time I was gone searching for me, to no avail. After the fight at the warehouse, the Watcher had disappeared entirely, as far as they could tell. It didn't leave them much to go on for tracking me down, and... yeah. With me stranded on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea how they ever could have found me.

Nothing much had changed until last night, actually.

"So I'm standing watch, right? Like usual. Then, in the middle of the night, the _princess_ —" Mokou paused mid-sentence to disdainfully stab a fried egg. I'll swear I never saw that girl eat anything but meat, eggs, and the occasional fruit. Didn't they used to call that the paleo diet? "—came out of her room. I knew something was wrong, because usually somebody like her would just as soon sleep fourteen hours a day. Since we're trying to keep things friendly, I asked her why she was up."

"And she attacked you?" I said.

"Shot me in the stomach without so much as a 'hi.' We've been killing each other for years, but that's a bit sudden even for her." Mokou shrugged, as if the slight breach of vendetta etiquette was what really mattered here, not the fact that she'd been shot. "Anyway, once she'd shot me enough to keep me down, she grabbed some stuff and left. Didn't really say much."

"... huh." I considered this as well as I could while I shoveled food into my mouth. Even with my face swollen, I was well into my second plate. It was the first warm meal I'd had in a week. I wasn't going to let the pain ruin this for me. "Did you see much, Merry?"

"I, um... slept through it."

"You slept through Mokou getting _shot_?"

"I yelled a lot, too. I was pretty pissed," Mokou added.

Maribel started buttering a piece of toast. Mostly, I think, to give her an excuse to not meet my gaze. "I... had a lot of trouble sleeping after you disappeared, and I eventually kind of passed out last night."

"Oh. … sorry." I tried to usher the conversation along from that. "Well, if it was a few hours ago, the timing lines up. It sounds like the Bright Lady probably came straight here, possessed her, and decided to skip town."

"The Bright Lady?"

"Oh. That's what I've been calling the youkai that was possessing me. When I was on the island, I mean. She, um, glows, and it'd feel a little weird to call her 'evil Renko' or something, you know?"

"So Kaguya is being controlled by a, um... completely immoral, evil monster who only wants to hurt people?"

"I think so, yes."

"So it's a little worse than normal Kaguya, then," Mokou muttered, popping a chunk of egg into her mouth. "Even if we wanted to stop her, how would we find that thing?"

"Well... she left a few hours ago, right?"

"She took pretty much all of my money, too," Maribel said. "She grabbed my purse."

Even after spending a week on the island with her, I couldn't really say much about the Bright Lady's motivations. All she seemed to want out of life was to break people's hearts. She could do that pretty much anywhere. For all I knew, she'd boarded a boat to South America this morning and we'd never hear from her again. Really, though, between the head trauma and the lack of sleep, I wasn't in much of a thinking mood. "... we'll figure it out." I sighed. "She already has a few hours of head start, and we don't have much to go on, so... it might take a while."

"But we're not leaving Kaguya like that, right?"

"Of course not."

"Kaguya seems like a weird choice if she just wants a body, doesn't she? Um, I mean..." Maribel gave her toast a pensive waggle. "We're pretty much guaranteed to chase her, and Kaguya doesn't have any registration or anything. If she just wants to hurt people, wouldn't she be better off possessing... I don't know, the prime minister or somebody? Then she could have the SDF bomb downtown Tokyo or something."

"I'm not sure if that's very youkai-like."

"It would be pretty dramatic, though. Like a YA novel or something. You and I could lead the resistance." Maribel took a bite of her toast and thoughtfully added, "Mokou would be the grizzled veteran."

"I think I'd watch this movie."

"Me too."

It hurt to laugh, but I did it anyway. After the island, making terrible jokes with Maribel felt like heaven.

Mokou, of course, had to ruin it.

"Yeah, well, anyway," she said, and pushed her plate away. "I think I'm done eating. Renko, do you need some help with your face? I took a look earlier, and I think Merry has everything I need to patch you up."

"Oh, um." I touched the edge of a gash self-consciously. "I should probably go to a hospital..."

"And what are you going to say when the doctor asks what happened?"

"I can say I tripped through a window or something. I don't know."

"Yeah, well," she said, a bit more insistently, and rose from the table. "I can clean it up for now. Come on, I'll meet you in the bathroom."

* * *

Put like that, Mokou didn't leave me much choice. I finished up the rest of my meal quickly, then followed her into the bathroom, where she already had half of the contents of Maribel's medicine cabinet laying out on a counter. "Go on, have a seat," she said, as she closed the door behind me.

"Okay..." I sat down on the edge of the tub and took my hat off. "I didn't know you knew first aid."

"You pick up a lot of skills, after the first few hundred years."

" _Modern_ first aid?"

"I know enough to guess. This stuff doesn't change that much." She moved her hand over the pile, pointing at the individual pieces. "These are bandages, this stops infections, this is for grabbing things, and this is medicine or something, right?"

"More or less. I'm impressed."

"Yeah, well, it helps that most of them have labels saying what they're for. Turns out, I can read. Now hold still."

I did so, and Mokou leaned in. She wet a cloth and started dabbing my face with it. Thankfully, since I'd already bathed, it wasn't too bad, but my face still throbbed in pain from being touched again.

"So, has Merry told you much about, uh, her boundary powers?"

"She said a little on the phone..." I said. "Something about seeing more of them now?"

"I guess. She was ranting about it when I woke her up. It took me about fifteen minutes just to calm her down enough to tell her what had happened with Kaguya. You wouldn't know it from how she acts now, but she was pretty shaken up. She's good at hiding it, but I could tell it was a big deal for her."

"Oh."

"Anyway, here's the way I see it," Mokou said, in between concentrating on her work. "After we killed that spider thing—"

"The Dark Thing," I said.

"Yeah, whatever. The Dark thing. It turns into a big cloud, and Merry sucks it up."

"She didn't _suck it up_ , it flew into her."

"Either way. That all happens, and we overlook it, because hey, youkai do weird stuff. Then tonight, you killed that eye youkai, right? You did that, and here we are a few hours later, and Maribel's suddenly running around in the middle of the night saying she has new superpowers. That doesn't seem suspicious to you?"

"It's... weird," I admitted. "But this whole incident is weird to begin with. It doesn't necessarily mean anything..."

"And then there was the part where she got hurt by that youkai extermination ofuda. _You_ were possessed. What's her excuse?"

"And what am I supposed to say? 'Maribel is a youkai'?"

"Maybe. Hold still." Mokou rubbed a spot on my face a few final times, then pulled the cloth back. She grabbed some tweezers from the kit and leaned in. With her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration, she carefully poked them into a wound. There were a few excruciating seconds where I could feel the tips probing around inside my cheek, and then she pulled them back. Clasped between them was a tiny, sharp chunk of blue plastic. Shrapnel from the gun. She sat it aside and continued. "Maribel opened a hole in the barrier when you came into Gensokyo, right? There are only a few people who can do that kind of thing. Most of them are youkai."

"Merry's... always had weird powers. They've just been stranger lately."

"Look, I'm not saying we kill her or anything. But you've got to accept that something is going on with her."

"Do you think the youkai are... infecting her or something? What's that black mist stuff they let out when they die?"

"Most youkai melt like that when they die. They never do leave a corpse. Only, it usually doesn't fly into a person."

"They all came out of Maribel's head in the first place. Maybe they're just going back where they belong."

"And changing Maribel in the process. Who knows what else."

That thought stopped the conversation for a few seconds. I don't think either of us needed to elaborate on why that would be bad. "Maribel hasn't changed," I said. "I'd know. She's still as sweet as ever."

"Even if she hasn't changed yet, there's still one more of those things out there. So, maybe she's not a youkai now. She's just a human who gets hurt by anti-youkai weapons for some reason. What happens if we kill that glowing Renko thing and it pushes her over the edge?"

"Even if she's a youkai, that doesn't mean she's _evil_ ," I said defensively. "Gensokyo has a lot of peaceful ones, right? The, um, those rabbits at Eientei. They're youkai, right?"

"I don't know if I'd call any youkai 'peaceful,' but yeah, they're mostly just assholes trying to get by, the same as humans. There are still plenty of youkai that aren't. Especially young ones. Ever meet a new vampire?" I hadn't, of course. "A lot of the older vampires are pretty tame. Younger ones... the thirst is more than most can take. They just go nuts biting people. Takes them a few years to settle down, sometimes."

"Merry would make a pretty terrible vampire. She gets dizzy when she sees blood."

"The point is that we don't know what will happen when we get that last youkai. It could be nothing, it could be enough to make Merry start trying to kill us. We don't know."

I stared down at the floor, staying still while Mokou pulled another piece of plastic out of my face. Having somebody suggest that my girlfriend might try to eat me soon was not what this day had needed. "You said there are youkai with powers like hers. If we get the time, maybe we should go to Gensokyo and talk to them. They should be able to tell us something, right?"

"The main one I'm thinking of isn't big on straight answers, but she might know something, yeah."

"So, um... if we take out the last youkai and it does have a bad effect on Merry, what can we do about it?"

"Do you think you could keep her out of trouble if she started trying to eat people or something?" Mokou said.

"Not... really," I admitted, already dreading where this conversation was going.

"You might want to do what you can to get ready, then."

"Like what? 'So, Merry, I was thinking, maybe you should get some heavy-duty restraints installed in your apartment. You know, just in case I ever need to tie you up.' There's no way she'll take _that_ the wrong way."

"What I mean is," Mokou said, her patience now fully strained, "we might not have a lot of options if something like that happens. If there's anything you need to do so you can sleep at night if it comes to that, I'd do it soon."

 _If you feel like you should tell Maribel we might need to kill her, get it out of the way now_ , I translated in my head. I sighed and slumped down. "I'll... talk to her about it."

"Good. You're a smart kid, I'm sure you'll figure something out." She uncapped a bottle of antiseptic and wet a cloth from it, then started dabbing my face. The sharp chemical smell triggered some very unpleasant memories of the island. The conversation came to an end, as I went very quiet.

* * *

After the session with Mokou, I really had intended to sit down with Maribel and talk through things, the very second I had time. But... I had to go to the hospital. After three hours of filling out forms and holding still while a doctor tended to my face, I wasn't in a very productive mood. The events of the night before were catching up with me. I was exhausted, and not just in that "I nearly died twice today" kind of way. I hadn't gotten much sleep, either, unless you count being catatonic on the floor of a convenience store. Thankfully, Maribel offered to let me use her bed. It was a pile of warm, fluffy covers, such a far cry from the cold, soggy mattress on the island. I sank into, got comfy, and... found that I absolutely could not fall asleep. I laid there for forty-five minutes, tossing and turning, before I realized that I heard the subtle sounds of somebody moving in the room.

I opened my eyes, and found Maribel standing in the doorway. She paused when she realized I'd noticed her. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I just thought I'd see if you were okay. Can't sleep?"

"I guess not." Giving up on the idea for now, I eased myself up to sit against the pillows, being careful about my bruised back. "It seems kind of silly, huh? A day ago, I would have killed for a bed this nice."

"Not at all. It sounds like you've been through a lot." Maribel moved into the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. "I'm glad you got out of it in one piece, though. Mokou and Kaguya could probably handle this whole thing themselves, but... I don't know if I'd be able to get through it without you around. I'm not really cut out for this youkai-hunting thing," she confessed, with a lopsided smile.

"I'm apparently an authentic youkai hunter now, and I don't know if I am either."

"No, if anybody is, it's definitely you! You're cut out for all of this supernatural stuff. I just kind of... trip over it, whether I wantto or not."

"You're the one who figured out how to open the gate to the netherworld, remember? And how to get us to TORIFUNE, and found the Izanagi objects. Compared to you, I'm an amateur."

"Maybe we're both just terrible in our own ways, and we combine to make a single basically-competent paranormal investigator."

"Mmhm. That's probably it. I guess we're stuck with each other, then."

Maribel gave a soft laugh at that. Afterward, she went quiet, staring down at her lap and fidgeting. It didn't really take my years of practice at reading Maribel's emotions to figure out that she had something on her mind. I had to work up my nerve, but I knew what we needed to talk about right now. "So, um... your boundary abilities. You said they got more powerful or something, right?"

"Oh! Um, yes. It's... kind of hard to explain, though." Maribel went quieter, and her fidgeting intensified. "I can see a lot more of them now, but at the same time, they're a lot easier to understand. If that makes sense?"

"A bit?"

"Yeah, I guess that's pretty vague. Maybe you can think about it like learning to read? Beforehand, you see writing everywhere, and you know that it's writing, but it doesn't mean much to you, right? Then, suddenly, whenever you look at it, you just _know_ what it means. The whole world is filled with information you couldn't access before. … except if we're continuing the metaphor, I'm seeing more words, too. Do you at least get the idea?"

"More or less. What kind of boundaries are there around a place like this? You're not just tripping over hells and stuff all the time, are you?"

"Well... I can see the boundaries to those, but I don't have to see into them. I think I have a lot more, um, control over that now. It's more than that, though. Before, I could only see when there was a big boundary. Like the one with the Netherworld, or Gensokyo. But when you think about it... pretty much everything has a boundary, right? There's a line that defines what's part of this apartment and what isn't, and, um, a point where breakfast ends. There's a boundary where you end. There has to be, right? Otherwise we'd just have to define the whole universe as Renko Usami. That would get pretty messy."

"Guts _everywhere_. Nobody wants that."

"Right. So that boundary is there, and I can see it. I can see all of them. If I really want to, I can even..."

Maribel trailed off, squinting at the air in front of her. She raised a hand and stroked her fingers over some unseen surface. With an expression that was equal parts concentration and amazement, she pushed it forward, and the air split open. Another hole opened a few centimeters in front of my face. Maribel reached into the nearer one, and her finger stretched out the one in front of me. She gave me a little poke on the nose, then pulled it back, beaming proudly. "Like that...!"

I pulled back, rubbing my nose, and looked uncertainly at the hole that she'd open still hanged in front of me. Inside of it was a very familiar pattern: darkness, studded with eyes. Like the Watcher's.

"That's, um... that's new," I said carefully.

"Huh?" Maribel had been so elated at her success that it took her a moment to realize what I was referring to. "Oh. Um. Yeah, they're creepy like that. I don't think it will hurt you, though!"

"You don't think this is kind of a coincidence?"

It's... hard to explain." Maribel rubbed at her arm anxiously as she thought. "All the other holes I opened were in big spiritual boundaries. These ones aren't like that. It's more like I'm, um... fooling the universe into thinking two places are the same. Maybe this is just what all these kinds look like?"

"Maybe." I wasn't entirely convinced, but it didn't pose an immediate threat, and I was still too tired to press the issue.

I was still left wondering just why it happened, and what relation it had to the monster I'd killed only hours earlier.

And just what it meant about Maribel Hearn's future.


	26. Chapter 17

After my nap at Maribel's, we decided a single thing: With the Bright Lady on the loose and Kaguya's powers at her disposal, it was too dangerous for Maribel or I to be alone without Mokou's protection. Not until we knew where Kaguya was, at least. So, I stayed at Maribel's that night, too. Thanks to my newly screwed-up sleep schedule, I was wide awake in the middle of the night, while Maribel was sleeping. Only then, relaxing on her couch with nothing to do but surf the internet and expose Mokou to terrible late-night television, did I think to check the few dozen notifications that had queued up on my phone.

The Southern Japan Cryptid Investigation Society was having its annual board of directors election, and as somebody who had made the 500 yen membership payment, I was invited to cast my vote. (Already passed by the time I got the message.) One of the physics student organizations on campus had sent me its list of guest speakers for the upcoming months. I was too tired to note which ones I might be interested in. More importantly, there were lots and lots of worried messages from authority figures in my life.

There were a few messages from my mom, sure, asking me why I wasn't answering the phone. My academic advisor had called me twice, and when I didn't pick up, had sent me several messages asking why I hadn't been to any classes for a week. My Condensed Matter Physics professor had sent out the latest grades, and I was failing. My lab TA had sent me a form letter informing me that I'd missed too many sessions to pass the course, and asking me to please contact her to schedule make-up labs at my earliest convenience.

There was a message from the auto pool's insurance agency, giving me the latest estimates on how much I would owe them for the total replacement of the car that had been totaled during the fight with the Dark Thing.

There was a much newer missed call from that afternoon. It was the Kyoto Police Department, with a voice mail informing me that they had some questions for me, and would I please contact the station to arrange a time for an interview.

This was about thirty too many things for me to deal with at the time, so I set the phone aside and pushed them from my mind. My mom could wait. The coursework was worrying, but it couldn't take priority over hunting for the Bright Lady and rescuing Kaguya. The police department... I called the station and left a brief message with the front desk AI informing them that my upcoming schedule was very hectic, and as such, it would be difficult for me to commit to a time. It probably wasn't a great idea, but I had some ideas about why the police might want to ask me questions, and a vested interest in not answering them.

With my day-to-day life collapsing around me, I settled in to think about how I was going to find Kaguya.

* * *

It was Maribel who located her, though. She'd barely been out of bed for an hour when she brought her findings to me and Mokou.

"I realized last night that Kaguya—um, the Bright Lady, whatever you want to call her—she took my purse when she ran away, right? I was going to call the bank to get my debit card canceled, but..." Maribel turned her phone around, and shoved it in our faces to present her evidence. "Look!"

Onscreen was the list of recent transactions for her bank account. Near the top was an entire section on her debit card, and most notably:

16/09/69 SHOP QRC #303985  
16/09/69 MEGURO STN VENDING  
15/09/69 HRSHG LINE TRANSIT PURCHS

"Uh, okay," Mokou said, staring at it blankly. "I have no idea what that means."

It didn't immediately make much sense to me, either. "It's a... list of purchases made with Maribel's card," I said. "And, huh. She... bought a train ticket and got off in Meguro?"

"That's what it looks like," Maribel said. She flipped her phone around and looked at the screen thoughtfully. "It makes sense, right? If all she needs is people to get emotions from, Tokyo has a lot of people. And if she's trying to avoid us, she could pretty much hide there forever. It's big enough."

"Not if we're seeing all of her purchases."

"I don't know how long that will last... I didn't have that much left in my account. It might not take her long to empty it out."

"Then we'd better try to catch her while it lasts."

"So, wait. We're actually chasing her down?" Mokou said.

"Um. Yes?" Maribel glanced between the two of us, like she was afraid she'd missed something. "I thought it was kind of obvious, really."

"How many people live in Tokyo?"

"Huh?"

"Just, how many people are there?"

I pulled out my phone for a quick check. "Twenty-one million people."

"... I. Uh, okay." Mokou seemed to need a second to deal with the fact that there were even that many human beings to begin with. "So we're going to go to a place with twenty-one million people, and try finding one person. That's like... that's not even a needle in a haystack, that's a needle in an entire forest. Oh, and also, in case you forgot, the needle is trying to kill you."

"So, um... do you have a better plan, then?" Maribel said.

"The whole reason you wanted to get rid of these youkai in the first place is that they were attacking you, right? This one decided to run off and leave you alone. She's not attacking you anymore. Problem solved."

"She took Kaguya with her...!"

"Yeah, she did. But remember that entire speech Kaguya gave me back on Fuji? 'This world doesn't amount to anything, and even when we're the last humans alive it won't even be a speck on out lifespans'? That cuts both ways. No matter how long that thing has Kaguya, compared to her whole life, it won't even matter. So tell me why we should risk getting you two killed to get her back."

"Because she's our _friend_ , and she helped us." Maribel crossed her arms, looking over Mokou curiously. "What, um... what do you have against her, anyway? What started the whole feud between you two?"

"I don't see how that matters."

"You have to admit you're kind of... biased, when it comes to Kaguya."

"Not really. The part that always seems really weird to me is that nobody _else_ wants to fight her."

"I've been wondering too," I said. "It has to be more complicated than the elixir thing, right?"

Mokou scowled at this, and for a few seconds, I thought she wasn't going to answer. "Do you know why Kaguya was on Earth in the first place? It's because she was a criminal. All these myths and stories about the... beautiful moon princess coming here and gracing us with her presence or whatever? It's because immortality's a big taboo up there, but she went ahead and made herself immortal because it sounded _fun_. Then she came down here, my dad proposed to her, and she sent him off on a wild goose chase that nearly got him killed, because she couldn't just say no like a normal person. She leaves behind the immortality elixir, and a bunch of guys ended up dead because of it."

I thought that now wouldn't be a good time to point out that Mokou had personally killed one of those guys. Mokou continued.

"I've ruined the lives of some people who didn't deserve it too. The difference is that afterward, I didn't act like everything was fine and avoid all the consequences. So, hey, if Kaguya spends a few years getting bossed around by some youkai, great. Maybe she'll learn something from not having everything go her way for once."

"Um... do you actually mean all of that, though?" Maribel said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Would you really be okay with not having Kaguya around for a few years? Or a few dozen?"

"Sure. I could use some peace and quiet."

"Wouldn't that get boring, though? The way she described the future, it sounds like you're going to have a lot of time to sit and think. Is that really what you want to be doing now?"

"Maybe I'll take up a hobby," Mokou said dryly.

"I've already been in her position, and I don't think it's what I'd call a learning experience," I said. "Kaguya might not even know she's possessed right now. The Bright Lady is good at... keeping your thoughts in line. Making it feel like nothing's out of the ordinary."

"Miss Fujiwara," Maribel said, pressing on. "Most of that stuff that you listed was over a thousand years ago, right? What has Kaguya done lately to deserve all of that?"

"What am I supposed to say? 'Sure, she ruined my dad's life, but it's been a while, so I guess she gets a pass'? She hasn't learned a thing in the past thousand years."

"Hasn't she? She volunteered to come help us, after all. That seems pretty selfless."

"She just wanted an excuse to see the outside world."

"She's fought bravely every time she's needed to. Even if she's here for fun, she isn't trying to avoid doing her fair share of the work." This time, Mokou didn't have a counterargument. After waiting a few seconds, Maribel continued. "She was pretty sympathetic to you, back on Fuji. I think she, um... understood how hard it was on you."

"If you mean that self-righteous speech about how nothing really matters, sure."

"She talked to me and Renko about it when you were away. I don't think she thinks of you as an enemy or anything. She talked about you almost like, um... almost like a friend."

Mokou scowled at this. "I need a smoke," she announced, and headed out the front door. I'd thought she intended to end the conversation there, but she left it open behind her, and leaned on the balcony railing outside.

Mokou took her time, going through all the steps of preparing her kiseru very deliberately—taking small pinches of it, sprinkling it into the pipe, packing it down with her thumb. With a flick of her thumb, she lit it, and gave a few pensive puffs, looking out over the parking lot. Only then did she speak again. "Kaguya has this... _perspective_ on the whole thing. I mean, she has eternity powers. When she talks about how it's not worth getting upset about stuff, because the world will crash into the sun in a zillion years anyway, I think she really means it. Like a damn monk. So, yeah, I'm sure that she doesn't care about stuff that happened a thousand years ago. She barely even cares about stuff that happened yesterday." She gave her pipe a flick, sending a few glowing ashes to waft to the sidewalk below. "I'm a person. I'm not like that. I'm not going to pretend I don't care about things just because they were a long time ago."

"Putting all of that aside," I said, "I don't think you're gaining anything by letting the Bright Lady possess Kaguya for the next fifty years. We're not asking you to like her. Just to rescue her."

"If you don't rescue her, you'll never be able to settle the bet," Maribel said teasingly.

"Heh. I guess there's that." Mokou grumbled under her breath, and drew out the buildup to her surrender for quite some time. With her best weary, put-upon sigh, she said, "If you two are just going to keep harassing me all day anyway, I guess I might as well. I came out here to kill those youkai, so I wouldn't be much of a youkai exterminator if I left one running around."

"Thank you, Mokou."

"Yeah, thanks." I almost sighed in relief. Maribel might have done most of the work, but I still hadn't been looking forward to figuring out what to do if she said no. "... oh, uh, one thing."

Maribel glanced back to me. "Hmm?"

"I probably have enough money for a train ticket to Tokyo, but that's it. I doubt I can cover Mokou's, let alone a hotel room. I guess I might be able to talk my parents into letting us stay with them." I was already dreading that conversation. It wasn't like it was a holiday, so if I showed up in the middle of the week asking to crash at their place with a few friends, they were going to have a lot of questions. Such as 'why aren't you in class right now?' I'd just have to deal with it when it happened. "The two of us combined probably have enough money for three tickets, right?"

"Actually..." Maribel's face spread in a smile. "I think I can get us there for free."

"Huh?"

"It'll be a surprise! I'll need to check some things first. We can always take the train as a backup plan. It's going to be really nice if it works, though...!"

"Well, okay. I still haven't been home since I got out. I'd really, really like to grab some changes of clothes and stuff before we rush off to fight another youkai. How long would your thing take, Merry?"

"An hour or two? I should be ready by the time you're done. We'll probably need to leave from my apartment... can you meet us back here when you're done?"

'Leave from my apartment.' It didn't exactly sound like she planned to take the train. Maribel's plans were only growing more mysterious, but if she could save me the last of my money, I wasn't going to argue. "Right. I'll get going, then."

"Want me to come with you?" Mokou said.

I waved her off politely. "Thanks for the offer, but the only youkai that's left is in Tokyo, right? I should be fine, unless you really want to help me pack clothes."

"I'm good. See you in a bit."

* * *

My apartment was a mess. Nobody had entered it since we'd prepared to go rescue Yuuta, so it still showed the signs of our rush out the door. On the other hand, it was home, it was quiet, and it had my toothbrush and a dozen changes of clothing. That was a huge step up by itself.

I sat out a duffel bag and started filling it with items that would have been untold luxuries on the island—clean clothes, deodorant, a toothbrush, shampoo, socks. I was able to find a little more loose cash. Added to the contents of my bank account, it raised my liquid assets from 'a train ticket and change' to 'a train ticket and one or two fast food meals.'

Things were looking up.

Or so I thought until I heard the knock at my door. It was a firm, heavy one. Not exactly how Maribel ever knocked, on the occasions that she didn't just walk right in.

I froze. Suddenly, I really wished that I'd taken Mokou up on her offer of an escort. If the Bright Lady had come back to kill me, I couldn't offer much in the way of resistance. A quick glance around assured me that there were no ofuda left in the place. The ones that had been in my apartment were now laying on the floor of a shack somewhere in the Kuril Islands.

The closest thing to a weapon nearby was a physics textbook. Which, in my defense, could probably have killed a man, if swung with enough force. With a hard back and 862 pages, _Intermediate Concepts of United Field Theory_ is not a book to take lightly. I gave it a heft and eased up next to the door, as another round of knocking came.

"Mokou...?" I said, praying that I'd hear a 'yes.'

"Officer Sakuragi, of the Kyoto Police department. I have an order for the arrest of Renko Usami."

* * *

I'd never been arrested before.

I don't recommend the experience.

The alarm to the Minami Convenience King store had gone off at 4:08 AM on the night before the previous one. When police had arrived to investigate, they had found a pool of fresh blood in the back room, along with the shattered remains of a firearm. Several security cameras had recorded me leaving the back room, exiting the store, and then hurrying away.

In formal terms, I was arrested for suspicion of criminal activities.

In practical terms, I was arrested for obviously being up to _something_. Nobody could say what it was, or why I'd chosen to do it in a convenience store at 4 AM. Nobody could say who I'd shot in the empty store, if not myself. I'd apparently been trespassing at the scene of some kind of crime, and the fact that my face had cuts and burns on it didn't make them any less suspicious. It seemed like their plan was to interrogate me until I confessed to my devious sins, whatever they might be.

They were pretty good at the interrogation part. I made the mistake of agreeing that, yes, I had been in the store. I wasn't about to deny it, since there was footage. So, they fixated on that for a bit, and wouldn't let go of it until I was on record as confessing to trespassing. Afterward, I tried to stick as close to the truth as anybody would possibly accept—I had woken up in the back room, somebody had shot me, their gun had exploded like that, and when I woke up hours later, I'd left.

Rather than accept this, they shouted some more and demanded to know why I hadn't contacted the police, if I'd been shot by a dangerous criminal. Why I had gone this long without reporting the crime. Why I'd been in the store in the first place. Why my supposed attacker hadn't been seen entering or leaving the store. It all seemed very suspicious to them. The questioning continued.

Four hours of this. I'm not going to go through it all.

Four hours later, with vague promises that I might be able to see a lawyer eventually, they got tired of questioning me and led me to a tiny detainment cell. I was alone, so at least there was that.

Throughout all of this, I'll admit, I'd been a bit too bewildered and overwhelmed by my sudden arrest and imprisonment to think about its impact on our larger situation. My phone was still in the duffel bag, so if Maribel had been calling me this whole time, I wouldn't know about it. In a way, I hoped that they'd headed to Tokyo without me. Compared to Kaguya's problems, getting arrested was minor.

At least, I tried to think that way. It was kind of hard to not wish for somebody to bust through the wall and rescue me.

Which is why it was so convenient that Maribel busted through the wall to rescue me.

I didn't even see her approach. The first sign that I wasn't alone was her voice, whispering, "Renko!" behind me.

I turned around. One of those eye-filled gaps had opened in the air barely half a meter behind me, and Maribel was leaning out of it, glancing around anxiously. This was weird enough to give me pause, or consider if maybe the encounter with the gun had given me some kind of brain damage. "... how did you do that?"

"I'll explain later! Um... where are we?"

"The police station. They arrested me for the whole thing at the convenience store the other night."

"Oh. Um. Do you think they'll let you out soon?"

"I don't think they're in a forgiving mood. It might—" The sound of footsteps came down the hall, and we both froze, going quiet. Only after several seconds of silence did I continue. "... it might be a few days."

"We don't really have a few days..."

"Yeah, I know." I eyed the gap behind her. "Did you come to get me out?"

"Well, I didn't know you were in jail in the first place. Now that I'm here, though... it seems like a pretty good idea."

A jailbreak wasn't going to help convince anybody that I was innocent. I would have been absolutely reckless to say yes. If I stayed here, assuming I could hold my ground and maintain the story that I'd been the victim, I could probably get off with nothing except a few minor charges. If I ran away... well, I assumed that a jailbreak carried a slightly higher penalty than breaking into a convenience store. Plus there was no way I could maintain that I was innocent, if I'd been willing to break out of jail to escape interrogation. I'd be lucky to escape the aftermath without getting charged with everything short of nuclear arms dealing.

On the other hand, Kaguya needed our help, and I'd just spent a week imprisoned on an island. I had no intention of trying for another week elsewhere.

With one last glance toward the hallway, I pushed myself to standing. "It does, yeah. Let's get out of here."

* * *

We emerged into Maribel's living room, where Mokou was waiting on the couch. "About time," she said, before my feet had even touched the ground. "Where were you?"

"Arrested. We probably shouldn't hang around for long."

"Oh. Uh. Alright."

Light from behind drew my attention, and I soon realized two things: First, that Maribel and I had just stepped out of the television. She'd opened a gap on the screen, exactly how the Watcher always had. Second, now that the gap was closing, I could see what they were watching. It was old, grainy phone camera footage, a close-up shot of my face. "What's this?"

"Oh, um. Case File #4. We took videos for that one."

I tried to remember what our fourth case ever had been. "The one where we tried to find the entrance to Yomi?"

"Mmhm. This is actually how I'd planned to go to Tokyo, but I ended up having to test it a little earlier. When I look at images, I can kind of see... it's like there's a boundary there, too. The line between reality and illusion, or reality and fiction, or something."

"So you, uh. Manipulated an illusionary Renko to find the real Renko?"

"Something like that. It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to make it work."

"Wow. Do you think you could do the same with a picture of Kaguya?"

"Oh, do you have one?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Neither do I. But, um, what I _can_ do is...!" Maribel pulled her phone out. With a few commands, she closed the video on the TV. A few more, and it it switched over to a street-level view of a crowded sidewalk. "Take us to Tokyo! Um, I'm familiar enough with you that the boundaries around your picture were really... clear, I guess? With Tokyo, I tried using a picture, but it was kind of hard to make it work. This is a live stream from some business' display window, though. It should be a lot easier to work with."

"You really did think of everything, didn't you?"

Maribel gave a bashful smile. "This boundary stuff feels kind of natural now. It's really not that impressive."

"Well, good. Do you have everything you need? We should probably get out of here before the police realize I'm missing and start looking for me."

"Mmhm. Mokou and I are ready whenever you are."

"Great," I said. "Let's go find Kaguya."

* * *

Upon our arrival in Tokyo, we emerged onto a bustling sidewalk in Shibuya. You would think that three people stepping out of an eye-filled hole in the universe would be pretty noteworthy. This was lunchtime in one of the most pedestrian-heavy places in the world, though. If anybody even noticed us, it was probably only to resent the addition of three more people onto an already-crowded sidewalk.

In the heavy crowds, it took us a while to get our bearings and make our way to a less populated area. We finally settled for ducking into a dead end alley, not only to gather our thoughts and figure out what to do next, but because Mokou seemed pretty overwhelmed. I think she'd gotten used to the sidewalks around the campus in Kyoto. Those held only a trickle of pedestrians outside of the breaks between classes. By comparison, Shibuya must have been like getting dropped in the Amazon.

Me, I was fine with it. Seeing those bustling crowds rejuvenated me. They meant that this was a city that was alive and growing. Not like Kyoto, a shambling zombie of a city where everybody did their best to pretend that nothing had changed in the past three hundred years. If the Bright Lady cornered me tonight and strangled me to death, at least I wouldn't be dying in Kyoto.

One thing we hadn't thought about before departing: There was no way I could stay with my family if the police were looking for me. I mean, I knew they didn't have a manhunt going or anything. Even so, once the Kyoto police realized that I, Renko Usami, master criminal charged with several counts of 'whatever it was, she did it,' wasn't in my apartment or attending class, they'd probably figure out that I'd skipped town. It would make sense for them to contact my parents to see if they knew where I was. So, first decision: Unless we had no other options, we'd avoid my family.

Fortunately, Maribel had just saved us our fare here. It wasn't much, but it was enough to cover two nights of rent in the single cheapest motel that I could find with my legendary online searching skills. Quite possibly the single cheapest one in all of Tokyo, and it looked the part. The bedsheets had a few stains whose origins were best left unknown. The water had a strange sulfurous smell. I'm pretty sure the woman at the front desk thought that Mokou was a prostitute and Maribel and I were her clients. I assume that the only reason I didn't see any roaches is that the place didn't meet their standards. It was cheap, though, which meant that we could afford two whole nights there, assuming we were willing to eat nothing but convenience store fare and ride the subway as little as possible.

In that squalid heap of a room, we settled in, watching the transactions on Maribel's bank account for any hint to the Bright Lady's, and Kaguya's, location.


	27. Chapter 18

Searching for an immortal moon princess possessed by a rogue youkai turned out to be much less interesting than one would expect. The only thing that we had to go off of was Maribel's bank account, after all. We had no idea what the Bright Lady was after. We had no idea where she might be, apart from 'in Tokyo somewhere, presumably.' Mokou wanted to search for her on foot, but after I reminded her that Tokyo's population was twenty-one million people and it was probably larger than Gensokyo, she cooled down on the idea.

It wasn't like we could afford to go anywhere, either. After paying for the hotel room, we didn't have much cash left. We'd sat aside a small budget for food, and that left enough for about eight subway tickets. Split across the three of us, we weren't going to be making many day trips.

So, we sat in the dingy hotel room. Maribel and I took turns watching her phone. The two of us who weren't doing that paced around, watched the tiny television, and went for walks around the almost-as-dingy neighborhood. Once every few hours, shouting or various other unsavory noises came through the walls, and we did our best to ignore them. Now and then, the phone showed a new transaction, but we never had any luck pinning the locations down. It was probably the dullest youkai hunt ever conducted.

It left me with a lot of time to think, though. About everything that Mokou had said. About everything the Bright Lady had said, too. Maribel was at the center of this entire incident. That much had always been obvious, but it had only become clearer lately. Every time she used those new boundary powers, making those little eye-filled gaps just like the Watcher had, I felt my stomach knot up. My friend was changing, and nobody knew what might happen when we defeated the Bright Lady. The least I could do was help her understand how and why.

Which was no small task. I spent most of the second day building myself up to it before I finally worked up the nerve. "Hey, Merry," I said. "Do you want to go grab some food? I'd like to talk for a bit."

"Hmm?" She looked up from her phone. "We could talk now, if you want. She hasn't bought anything in four hours."

"Oh, um." I glanced to the doorway. Outside, Mokou was leaning against the outer wall of the building, looking out over the parking lot and getting a smoke in. She was doing her best to pretend not to hear the conversation, at least. I'll give Mokou this: she never tried to stick her nose into situations that didn't directly concern her. Well, unless Kaguya was involved. "It's... private stuff. I'd like to talk with just you and me, if we can."

Maribel studied my face for a moment, then gave an uncertain nod. "Well... okay. Once Mokou's done smoking, she can take over for a bit."

Letting Mokou take over the search was an idea that had come up a few times, and we'd always decided it was too much trouble. Now, actually trying it, we proved ourselves right. It was a painstaking process. Mokou was familiar with the abstract idea of a phone, but the actual details of using one eluded her. Most of the foreign loanwords on the screen were completely alien to her. She'd never used a touch interface before, so she had to be coached through things like scrolling a page. Just training her to the point that she could refresh the page every few minutes and call me if there was an update took us half an hour to pull off. Finally, though, she seemed to get it, and Maribel and I stepped out onto the sidewalk.

We'd already established that there were six places nearby that sold food. Two were pubs or izakayas, one was a fast food place, one was a nice sit-down restaurant, and two were convenience stores. We could only really afford the last category, so shortly afterward, we were walking down the sidewalk and eating: a canned coffee and a styrofoam container bento for me, a sandwich with what looked like way too much mayo and a bottle of carbonated juice for Maribel.

I steered our walk east to the greenway, where we could have some slightly nicer scenery as we talked. Around noon on a weekday, in the middle of September, there were only a handful of other pedestrians around. Maribel and I had relative privacy, with only the occasional jogger to overhear snippets of our conversation. I spent a good few minutes nursing the last of my coffee and trying to build up my courage. When I finally spoke up, it was almost as much of a surprise to me as to Maribel. "So, how are your boundary powers coming along? You seem to be a lot more comfortable with them now."

"Oh! It's still a bit weird, but I'm, um, getting used to it." She pushed the last of her sandwich into her mouth, and hurried to follow it with a sip of her drink. To wash out the taste, I think. It didn't look like a very good sandwich. "I mean, it's a little weird. I can see where people think their personal space begins and ends, and, um, where all of the lines between neighborhoods are. There's a blurry line between truth and lies, and I can kind of see where different statements fall if I really concentrate. That's... kind of taking some getting used to."

"That all sounds pretty amazing."

"I guess it is, huh? It's just a lot to take in... I'm still trying to figure out how to actually use it."

"Mokou, um... Mokou thinks it might have something to do with defeating the youkai. Your powers increasing so fast, I mean."

"Yeah... That's the only explanation I've been able to think of, too." She raised one hand into the air, reaching out to touch something that I couldn't even see. "But it feels really natural. I don't know how else to explain it."

Something like that sounded about as unnatural as I could imagine, but I kept my opinion to myself. I was quickly steering the conversation into a corner where I'd have no choice but to use the bombshell I'd been sitting on. "If it's coming from the youkai... she doesn't know what that means. She's afraid there might be, um... side effects."

"Huh? Like what?"

"Remember how that ofuda burnt you that one time? She thinks you might be becoming a youkai, yourself."

"... oh. Um." Maribel was momentarily stunned by the suggestion. She drew to a stop and turned to look out over the scenery, deep in thought for a few seconds. "I... guess that's a possibility, huh? It would be, um, pretty weird for a normal human to go around opening holes in the world, after all."

"But you've had your powers since you were little."

"Maybe I've never quite been a normal human." She flashed me a wan smile over her shoulder. As she thought, she turned the sandwich wrapper over in her hands, folding it into a square and then creasing the corners. "What does it even mean if she's right?"

"This is going to sound kind of melodramatic, but, um... Mokou thinks you might end up trying to eat us."

She chuckled under her breath at the absurdity of that image. "... and what do you think?"

"Me? Uh, well, I'm not exactly a youkai expert. But, what I think is... no matter what happens, you'll still be Merry, right?" I was a little surprised by my own casual acceptance of this situation, and had to pause for a few seconds to digest it. "I guess no matter how we look at it, you're already not a human. That's why the ofuda burnt you. It's like you said before, you've never been a normal human to begin with. Whatever you become... I trust you to do the right thing afterward."

"That's, um... that's very nice of you, Renko."

"If you think about it, though, all of these youkai that we're fighting were part of you to begin with, right? They're your fears. They all came from you in the first place, and they go back to you when they die. We're _literally_ defeating your fears. Maybe you're not going through some weird metamorphosis or something. Maybe you're just... growing."

"Nobody ever told me that growing up would involve fighting a gorilla monster in a bath tub."

"I think most parents are too embarrassed to cover that in the birds and the bees talk, yeah."

She gave a weak laugh, and we both went quiet. I don't think either of us were really in a joking mood, but it helped a little. Once we'd gone down the path a bit more and dropped off our trash, I continued. "They told me what kind of fears they grew out of, you know. The Watcher and the Bright Lady, I mean, on the island."

"Oh, um." Maribel didn't seem entirely comfortable with this line of conversation. "What did they say?"

"The Watcher was... kind of hard to tell. I think it was, um, all that stuff that happened after TORIFUNE. With you hallucinating, and going to the sanatorium."

"It told you all of that?"

"Not talking. It kind of... showed me memories. Your memories. They were pretty vivid."

"... oh." Maribel shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry you had to see that."

"I'm sorry you had to go through it. If I'd known you felt like that, I would have busted into the sanatorium and rescued you."

"It's kind of an embarrassing thing to be scared of, though. It feels kind of childish, doesn't it?"

"It was bad enough that I'll probably have some nightmares about it, myself, so I can't really blame you. The other one was. Um. Okay, this is just the Bright Lady's word, and she lies pretty much constantly, but she said that she was born out of, er... you being afraid that..." Yeah, there was no non-awkward way to discuss that topic. I kind of already regretted bringing it up. "... she said you were afraid that I was going to get tired of your visions and abandon you or something."

"... oh." Maribel froze. "I guess that one's more embarrassing, then."

"She pretty much spent the entire time insulting you, so I'd take it with a grain of salt."

Maribel stared down at the ground in embarrassment, fidgeting for a minute or two. I gave her her space. "It's true, though," she finally mumbled. "I've always kind of been afraid of that. That putting up with me was just more trouble than it's worth. It sounds pretty pathetic when I put it like that, but... it's the truth."

Maribel opened her mouth to continue, then faltered, like she was debating whether she wanted to actually continue. "There was..." she began, and hesitated again. "In high school. I only really had one friend. I'd already learned by then to hide my visions from people, but she spent enough time around me to catch onto it. She helped me through a few of them, even. And then, one day, I had one at school. A really bad one, with people being eaten or something. I... couldn't stay calm that time. I was curled up in my chair and crying. I was talking to her, trying to keep myself from having a breakdown in front of the entire class, and she just... she, um, looked back at me, and she said, 'You're embarrassing me.' And she turned away and ignored me. We never really talked after that. … I always thought that was how it would go. One day it would be too much for you and you'd just... leave."

"That's horrible. ... you know that I wouldn't do that to you, right?"

Maribel gave a weak smile. "I know. Just, in the back of my mind, every time, I was always wondering... maybe this was it, the point where I started being too much of a burden. But you never treated it like that. Um. Thank you for that."

"I didn't really do anything praiseworthy. It's more that I didn't act like a jerk... but you're welcome, Merry."

Maribel was shaking now, and I could see tears in her eyes. I stepped over and pulled her into a hug. She leaned into it, giving me a tight squeeze and resting her face in against my shoulder. "So don't worry about it, alright? Even if this all ends with you turning into a horrible man-eating youkai, I'm going to do my best to fix it."

"I... really hope that doesn't happen."

"Yeah. Me too."

I held Maribel there, in the middle of the path, for a few minutes until her emotions had settled down. Watching her then and there, I truly believed everything that I'd said. If this all ended with Maribel growing horns and falling to the deepest pits of Hell, I'd be reading up on demon summoning by the next evening.

Our tearful moment was interrupted by the wailing of a trumpet.

Well, a recording of a trumpet, anyway. It was a section of _Take the 'A' Train_ , as performed by Edward "Duke" Ellington, and it had been my ringtone for six months by that point. (Maribel always has said that I have the musical tastes of an old woman. My counterargument is that, unlike her, I _have_ musical tastes.) I had to pull myself out of the heartfelt embrace to fumble a wailing phone out of my pocket. It was approximately the single most awkward experience of my entire life.

As soon as I hit the Accept button, I heard Mokou's voice.

"—if I'm even using this thing right. Hey, can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can. Hi, Mokou."

"Hello?" She was shouting now.

"Mokou, it's Renko."

"Hold on, I think I've got..." Her voice grew more distant, then moved right up to the receiver. "HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR—"

"I can hear you! You don't need to shout."

"Look, I don't know which end of this thing is up. The words keep flipping around when I move it."

"You can turn screen rotation off, you just have to—" I realized that if I took the time to walk Mokou through the steps of changing the settings on Maribel's phone, I could be standing there for an hour. "... never mind. Anything to report?"

"Yeah. That, uh, thing on the screen got a new line in it."

"What's it say?"

"I don't know, it's in some other language. You or Merry are going to have to read it."

"Right. We'll be back in a few minutes."

"Great. … uh, so, how do I make this thing go back to the other... hold on, I think I found the button. Anyway, see you then, I—" Her voice abruptly cut off as she ended the call.

* * *

What Mokou had found, it turned out, was the clue we'd been looking for the whole time. At the top of Maribel's transaction register, written in English, was: TOKYO MOONRISE GARDEN. It was a hotel. Unlike the restaurants, train stations, and vending machines that the Bright Lady had otherwise been using the card at, we could easily find it. Also unlike those, she was likely to stay there for more than an hour or two, meaning that we had time to catch up to her. It was, altogether, perfect.

We didn't waste much time on preparations. Mokou had been making new ofuda ever since the fight in the warehouse, and divided them up into two stacks—a small one for me, a large one for her. I was apprehensive, but pleased to find that I could now touch them without hurting myself. It was nice to be reassured that I was still fully human.

I was antsy the entire train ride there. The Bright Lady had used me against my friends for weeks, nearly made me commit suicide, and got pretty close to killing me anyway. I owed her a lot of payback, but more importantly, I didn't have a good track record at going up against her. This time I was with Mokou and we know what we were heading into, but in some ways, I was less prepared than I'd ever been. If it came down to it, would I be able to fight her if she was possessing one of my friends? Or even a stranger? For that matter, what was even our plan for fighting her in a _hotel_?

"Okay, so, for the record," I said, as we approached the place. "We can't get into a fight here, do you understand? This isn't like the Dark Thing or the warehouse. There are too many witnesses around."

"Why even bother to show up, then?" Mokou said, mumbling around the stem of her pipe. The few other pedestrians were giving her weird looks for this. "Think you can sweet talk her into surrendering?"

"Maybe we can play it by ear?" Maribel said hopefully.

"Oh, yeah," Mokou said. "Let me just improvise a plan to kill a youkai without fighting it."

"Maybe we can lure her somewhere unpopulated to fight her," I said, while already pondering the odds of finding enough empty land to have a laser battle within twenty kilometers of the heart of Tokyo. "Or get her to agree to meet us there."

"Why would she agree to fight me?"

"We'll just make it clear that we're willing to follow her to the ends of the Earth to get Kaguya back."

"Speak for yourself."

Maribel said, "We probably shouldn't mention that we're pretty much broke, then. Well, um, I'm not, but I will be once she spends another day or two with my debit card..."

"Like Merry said, we'll improvise. We're not going to find anywhere in Tokyo where we can confront her without witnesses, so we might as well do it now. Oh, Mokou," I said, as I stepped up to the door. "Pipe. No smoking indoors, remember?"

Mokou came to a stop and scowled at me. "Probably not going to get another chance for a smoke for three hours," she said, but cooperated and flicked the smoldering, still mostly intact wad of tobacco into the ash tray by the door. "Come on, let's get this over with."

* * *

Getting this over with proved to be more difficult than I'd banked on, though. I'd thought that we could convince the receptionist into giving us Kaguya's room number, but only once we were inside did I realize: We very well couldn't go to the front desk and ask for 'the Bright Lady.' She hadn't put the room under the name of Kaguya Houraisan _or_ Maribel Hearn, and the fact that the room had been paid for by a card registered to Maribel wasn't enough to convince them to give away a guest's room number. We spent a good hour trying different tactics until it was obvious that they were thinking about kicking us out, then retreated across the lobby to come up with a plan B.

We were still talking about that when hands came to rest on mine and Mokou's shoulders.

"Renko, Mokou, Maribel," Kaguya's voice said from behind us. "It's so nice to see all of you."

"Are these your visitors, Ms. Horii?" the receptionist said.

"Why, yes, they are. Why, is there a problem?"

"They've been being very disruptive. We do ask that visitors to the hotel be escorted by a guest at all times."

"Of course. My mistake." Kaguya gave the receptionist a sweet smile, then turned back to us. "You heard her. Stay close."

Without waiting for a response, Kaguya turned and walked back into the hotel. Maribel, Mokou, and I all exchanged confused glances, but I couldn't think of a good reason to turn back now. We followed.

(Note: It's really hard to write about somebody who's possessed. Do I refer to her as Kaguya, or the Bright Lady, or Kaguya Possessed By The Bright Lady, or what? _The Elements of Style_ have nothing to say on the issue, I'm sure. For ease of writing, just assume that anywhere I say Kaguya without specifying, I obviously mean The Bright Lady speaking as Kaguya.)

Once we were out of earshot of the receptionist, Mokou spoke up. "What exactly was that about?"

"Well, you obviously came all this way to see me, so when I saw you standing there, I couldn't just leave you waiting."

"Who the hell is 'Miss Horii'?"

"It's called a pseudonym. Look it up in a dictionary when you get home."

"Look, we know you're possessing Kaguya, so can we cut the act and just start killing each other?"

"Maybe I just got tired of dealing with you three and decided to strike out on my own," Kaguya said.

The Tokyo Moonrise Garden was one of those new biosphere hotels, with a massive central atrium filled with vegetation. All of the animal sounds coming from it were fake, of course. Like most humans, hotel guests only really appreciate the parts of nature that are well-behaved and nice to look at. Anything that might pee on luggage or try eating somebody's food was unwelcome in this unnatural nature preserve.

Kaguya had led us into the middle of the atrium. In a large clearing in the center, the hotel's restaurant was laid out. It was scenic, I'll give it that much. The tables, chairs, and even the plates were made out of natural material, and shaped in such a way that you could almost convince yourself that they'd grown right out of the soil alongside the trees. The foliage formed a perimeter on every side, making the place feel isolated and cozy, and only by looking straight up could I see the rest of the hotel, with balconies stretching overhead for another two dozen floors. Beyond it all, a massive skylight let a bit of natural sunshine in.

This youkai's hotel was so much nicer than ours that I couldn't help but be a bit jealous.

"And what are you doing now?" Mokou said.

"I feel like we need to have a long talk," Kaguya said. "Why not do it over dinner? My treat."

"Technically, it's mine," Maribel said. "Since you're using my money, after all."

Mokou said, "How about you just cut the act, and we can go outside and kill you?"

"I'm staying in here," Kaguya said sweetly. "If you'd like to leave, you're free to, but I have no intention of following you."

Mokou grumbled, but stayed put. We really didn't have much choice unless we wanted to attack her then and there, surrounded by dozens of people. A hostess approached, and Kaguya asked for a quiet table for four. We'd arrived right around the start of the dinner rush. The place was pretty full, so we were treated to another unique awkward experience: Standing around waiting for a restaurant table with a group where every member is planning to try to kill one or more of the others in the near future. Thankfully, it didn't take long before we were seated, and after we'd all ordered our drinks—because now that we were sitting down, we couldn't really tell the waiter, 'actually, we're just here to exorcise our friend'—the conversation continued.

"So, yes," Kaguya said. Now that we weren't in earshot of so many people, she dropped the faux polite tone. It felt weird, hearing somebody speak with my accent and intonation through Kaguya's body. "You've obviously figured it out, so I won't keep wasting our time. Yes, I'm possessing Kaguya. How did you find me, anyway?"

"We watched what you were charging to Merry's credit card," I said.

"You can do that?"

"Um, yeah."

"... huh. I'll keep it in mind next time. How's the face, Renko?"

She was still very good at making me want to punch her. "It's been better."

"I was trying to make it a bit more... dead, but the scars are a nice look for you. I mean..." Kaguya smiled pleasantly, as she unwrapped her silverware and spread her napkin out on her lap. "I would have saved us all some trouble if I'd settled for choking you to death after the gun broke, but I was in a hurry. Next time, I guess."

"If this is supposed to convince us not to attack you, you're not doing a very good job at it," Mokou said.

"I'm getting to that. It's obvious that it's what you're here for. Why?"

I said, "You mean beyond the times you let hungry youkai loose in my apartment, the times you tried to get me to kill Maribel, the time you made me point a gun at her head, the time you nearly made me kill myself, and the time you shot me in the face?"

"That's all in the past. I'm not much of a threat to you in Tokyo. Are you here for revenge, Renko?"

"We're here to get Kaguya back."

"Fighting me and getting Kaguya back are two different things."

"So, um," Maribel said. "Are you saying that you'd just let Kaguya go if we asked nicely?"

Kaguya's smile spread. "Well, see, that's the problem. I'm pretty fond of Miss Houraisan's body. I had my eye on her from the start, but Renko was easier to posses. Now that I have her, though... legendary beauty, flight, immortality, and quite a bit of firepower. It's a pretty nice model. Way better than anybody I could grab off the street. I'd like to hang on to it."

"Great," Mokou said. "Glad we cleared that all up. Are we ready to fight yet?"

"It would ruin the ambiance of this nice restaurant," Kaguya said. "Did you know it's named Bamboo? Pretty appropriate for a lunar princess, don't you think?"

"Yeah, real ironic."

"That's, um, pretty much the opposite of irony," Maribel pointed out.

Mokou threw her hands up in surrender and withdrew from the conversation for the moment.

"Why are you even _here_?" I continued. "Is this your plan? To possess Kaguya and tour the nation's three star hotels?"

"Come on, Renko, you're not stupid. Or did that gunshot give you some brain damage? Kaguya might be immortal, but her body gets grumpy without food, water, and somewhere to sleep." Kaguya trailed off as the waiter arrived with our drinks. Judging by his expression, he'd heard the past few seconds of conversation, and dearly wanted to get this over with and leave the table. Once he was gone, she continued. "So you want to know my big plan? For now, befriend and betray some people. Kaguya's body comes with some limitations. I can't possess anybody else for too long, or she might run off. Maybe I'll seduce some millionaires, take their money, and leave them bleeding out in a ditch somewhere. Maybe I'll try my hand at being a con artist for a few years. I'm playing it by ear."

"Hey, us too," Mokou grumbled.

"But, you don't need to do that stuff...!" Maribel said. "That's what Gensokyo's for, right? So youkai can live apart from humans without hurting them?"

"Why would I move to Gensokyo? Most of the youkai hunters in the world live there. So do most of the people who would recognize Kaguya. Out here, nobody knows who she is, and nobody can stop her."

"Except us," Mokou said.

"True. But how do you plan to pull it off, Mokou?" Kaguya leaned back in her chair and gestured at the crowded restaurant around us. "Do you want to fight right here? That'd be pretty reckless even by your standards."

"I've got eternity. I can be patient."

"Yeah, maybe you can. But let me tell you what's going to happen after this: I don't have any reason to leave Tokyo. There are millions of people whose hearts I can break here. I'm never far from a crowd, and I can be anybody, anywhere. Do you really want to fight me?"

"You can't possess anybody else without leaving Kaguya," I said.

"I can always possess her again once you're dead."

"I can beat up any of these people, no problem. Not much of a threat," Mokou said.

"But how many of them are you _willing_ to beat up? How many dead humans is Kaguya worth to you?"

Mokou sighed and leaned back on her chair, examining Kaguya over the table. "You might be the biggest asshole of a youkai I've ever met."

Kaguya shrugged lightly. "Call it self-defense. I wouldn't get anything out of it, but if that's what it takes to keep you off my back, I'll do it. If you have a problem with that, blame Maribel. She made me this way."

"That sounds like a pretty convenient excuse, since I've known demons and amanojaku who could learn to play nice with others. So, let _me_ tell _you_ what's gonna happen: you're going to get out of Kaguya's body, head to Gensokyo, and leave Merry and Renko alone from now on. In exchange, I'm going to be nice and not exterminate you."

"It sounds like," Kaguya said, "we aren't going to come to an agreement."

"Yeah, not happening," Mokou said.

"There's only one thing to do, then."

"Yeah." Mokou pushed herself to her feet, rolling her shoulders and stretching. "About time. All this sitting around talking doesn't really suit me."

Kaguya inclined her head and took a sip of her drink, as if she was acknowledging Mokou's point. Then, she froze, with a look of shock spreading on her face. "It... it's gone," she said, and experimentally flexed her fingers. "I can move..."

We sat in silence for a second, processing this. Maribel was the first to break it. "Kaguya!" She practically leapt across the table, pulling her into a hug. "Are you okay?! We were so worried about you...!"

Kaguya's chair rocked backward from the force of the impact, but she smiled and returned the hug. "That thing, it was... controlling me. I haven't been able to think straight for days..."

"I know the feeling," I said. I kind of wanted to join in on that hug. I knew too well what she must have been going through right then. "It's nice to have you back."

"It's nice to see all of you. Even Mokou, under the circumstances."

" _Yeah_ , well," Mokou said, "I'd love to catch up and kill you a few times for old times' sake, but we're kind of hunting a youkai right now. And for all I know..."

Mokou whipped an ofuda from her pocket and dramatically slapped it against Kaguya's face. The paper crinkled a bit from the impact, but there was otherwise no reaction. "... alright, so, you actually aren't still possessed."

"No, I'm not," Kaguya said, and gently moved Mokou's hand off of her face. Once it was there, she took the ofuda from her hand. "But I'll keep this for now. It shouldn't be able to possess me again if I'm touching one, right?"

"Yeah, more or less. Where'd she go, though?"

I looked out over the room. Just within sight, there were a few dozen people. And, like the Bright Lady had said before her sudden exit, she could be any of them, anywhere. She could have fled the building. She could have been invisible. She could have been three meters away, watching us through somebody else's eyes.

"We have to find her," I said. "If we don't catch her here, we might not get another chance."

"Yeah, well, if you've got any idea on how to do that, I'm—"

Mokou went silent, as the electricity throughout the building died in a single firm pop. There was a moment of darkness, with no illumination except the sunlight overhead. Then, tiny emergency lights all along the walls lit up, speckling the darkness with islands of illumination.

A confused murmur ran through the crowd around us. Mokou was already out of her chair, looking up at all of this suspiciously. "This probably isn't a coincidence, huh?"

A screeching alarm sounded from hundreds of speakers throughout the building. It echoed through the atrium, making a chorus with itself. Emergency lights along the walls started strobing in bright flashes. A pleasant, masculine, obviously pre-recorded voice spoke from the heavens. "Attention please. At this time, due to the threat of a fire, we would like to ask all guests to please evacuate the hotel for your own safety. Please stay calm and follow the instructions of staff and fire officials. Attention please..."

The other restaurant patrons were rising out of their chairs too now, talking more loudly as they tried to figure out what was going on. I craned my head back, and above us, I could see dozens of guests stepping out of their rooms to see what all the clamor was about. "Well, if she wanted a crowd, she's going to have one now..."

I heard hurried footsteps approaching from behind me, and turned around just in time to see a blur of motion. Something slammed into the back of my head. Stars exploded into my vision, and I fell forward onto the table.


	28. Chapter 19

"Renko!"

It was Maribel's voice, not that that registered with me. People normally talk about their train of thought derailing in circumstances like that, but in this case, it was more like it had driven directly off the tracks and into a canyon. The blow to my head left me stunned, with a tingling sensation dragging my thoughts down. With a groan, I tried to push myself from the table.

"Renko, we have to move!"

Mokou's voice this time. She grabbed my shoulder and yanked me upward, then wrapped an arm around me for support. My brain was piecing itself back together enough to understand what I was seeing. We stepped around a man on the floor, curled up and clutching his stomach after the sucker punch that Mokou had given him. Laying around him were a few ofuda and a toppled chair. The chair that he'd use to club me over the head.

"Keep your eyes out!" Mokou shouted over the fire alarm. "She could be any of them!"

It had barely been twenty seconds since the alarm had been sounded, but already, the atrium was starting to get crowded. The restaurant patrons were on their feet now, being herded toward the lobby by bewildered wait staff. The first wave of evacuees from the lower floors were flooding out of the stairwells around the edge of the building. The fact that this was all happening in near darkness, lit by flashes of light from the fire alarms, wasn't speeding things along.

Maribel hurried over to me, taking the other side from Mokou. "Renko, are you okay?!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm..." Talking hurt. I felt like the jolt had probably ripped out a few stitches on my face. "What _happened_?"

"A man attacked you without warning," Kaguya said. "I think that youkai got tired of waiting for a fight..."

I slipped away from their supporting arms and gingerly touched the back of my head. I was pleased to find no blood. It'd just feel like somebody had stabbed a spear through my skull for a few days. What was it with the Bright Lady and head trauma?! "I think I'll be alright. Just a little dazed..."

"That's good," Kaguya said. "We need to get you and Maribel to safety and—"

"There!" Mokou shouted. I looked over just in time to see a man barreling out of the darkness, brandishing a flower pot overhead like a weapon. Mokou launched an ofuda toward him, just as he stumbled to a confused stop. It slapped against him harmlessly, then drifted to the floor.

"Dammit," Mokou said. "She's switching between bodies too fast for me to—"

Mokou spun toward the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps from behind us. She was too slow. A waitress tackled Maribel from behind, a steak knife in hand. Maribel gave a startled yelp as they fell to the floor. The waitress lunged in to stab at Maribel's head. Kaguya dashed into the fray just in time to catch her wrist, and yanked the woman backward. With a swatting motion, she slapped the ofuda in her hands on the waitress' arm. A quick burst of smoke came out before it went inert, no longer triggered by the presence of a youkai.

Even in the darkness, the other guests had realized that something very weird was happening with our group. They backed away, giving us a meter or two of space. The atrium was now crowded, though, with more and more guests pouring in from above, and the entire crowd trying to squeeze through the doors to the lobby. We were surrounded, and any one of them could be possessed. Mokou was scanning the whole area warily, ready for an attack from any direction. Another woman rushed at us from the darkness, and Mokou effortlessly intercepted her, slamming her to the floor and slapping a useless-as-usual ofuda against her arm. Behind me, the waitress was bowing profusely, mumbling a stream of apologies to Maribel.

"I can grab new bodies...!" A man bellowed in front of us shouted.

"All day...!" A woman behind us.

"You know!" Somebody from a balcony above.

"Yeah?! You're not accomplishing much!" Mokou shouted back toward the ceiling.

"Oh, then..." This, from a man who'd already started rushing at us. Mokou sidestepped him and spun around, slamming an ofuda on the back of his head and sending him sprawling.

"Maybe I'll..." A woman rushing toward us, targeting Mokou again. She leapt forward. Mokou took a step back, avoiding the attack and elbowing the woman in the face as soon as she landed. She didn't even bother trying with an ofuda this time.

"Do..." The crowd was rapidly backing away from us, but one of the stragglers turned to charge at Mokou. Again, she tried to dodge, but now she had two people on the floor around her. Her sidestep was a bit too slow, and he tackled into her waist. Mokou was sent onto her back, but rolled with it, transferring the momentum into a kick that launched the man off of her.

"This."

That time, the Bright Lady spoke in Kaguya's voice.

It was immediately followed by a single, forceful shot, powerful enough that the air exploded outward like a clap of thunder. At one end of the silver beam of energy was Kaguya's outstretched hand.

Mokou was at the other. Mokou, who now had a glowing hole the size of a bowling ball burnt through her chest. _Through_ her chest, and a meter or so of the floor beyond. Mokou was probably dead before she even realized what had happened.

A wave of screams came from the crowd. They'd been giving us a wide berth before, but now they started rushing away. Spurred on by a single attack, the evacuation turned into a stampede. The combination of my shock and the rush of movement almost made me miss the fact that Kaguya had turned her hand my way. I leapt aside just as another beam of energy lanced through the air next to me. I barely managed the landing without falling over, and fumbled in my pockets for the stack of ofuda.

Maribel was on the other side of her from me, looking uncertainly between me and Kaguya. She had no weapon, I realized. She couldn't wield the ofuda, and at best, she might be able to club Kaguya with an item off the floor. If anybody else got possessed, she couldn't even do that much without risk of killing them.

So. It was pretty much up to me.

"This doesn't have to be violent," I said, as diplomatically as I could while pulling anti-youkai weaponry from my pocket.

"Do you really expect me to believe that you'd let me just let me walk out of here?"

"We just want Kaguya back...!" Maribel said.

"She's pretty useful. I think I'm gonna hang on to her. Besides." Kaguya took a step closer, and my whole body twitched as I braced myself for an attack that never came. "I don't need you two anymore. If I walk away, I'll have to spend the next decade wondering if you're coming for me. Sounds like a headache. I'll save us all the trouble and kill you both here."

We had the atrium almost entirely to ourselves now. The panic following Kaguya's attack had driven most of the other guests out the door. The few who'd arrived since were mostly hurrying their way out, paying little attention to our conversation. It was probably barely audible over the still-blaring fire alarms, anyway. They weren't helping my trauma-induced headache at all. Mokou was still very dead, and I had no idea how long it would take her to recover.

Me and an unarmed Maribel versus a possessed, thousand-year-old, immortal moon princess. This did not seem to be a fair matchup.

Kaguya was a few meters away. Far enough that she'd have plenty of time to shoot me if I tried to reach her. Unlike Mokou, I wasn't about to recover from an injury like that. If I could fling ofuda the way Mokou did, I might be able to make it an even fight, but... this didn't seem like a good situation to start practicing my card-throwing skills.

Kaguya raised her hand slowly, a growing smile on her face as she leveled it at me. "I'd ask if you have any last words, but I guess we already did that, huh? Well. Goodbye, R—"

And Maribel leapt forward and tackled into Kaguya's back with one shoulder, shouting a war cry of, "Stop it!"

Kaguya's shot went wide, gouging a long furrow in the floor, and she stumbled a few steps forward before recovering. She twisted around and jabbed one hand at Maribel, firing another shot that barely missed her head.

The fight had begun.

I dashed toward the two, palming a few ofuda for an attack. Before I could reach them, Kaguya shoved Maribel away and floated into the air.

"Merry!" I shouted. "Keep her on the ground."

"R-right...!" Maribel leapt for Kaguya, her arms outstretched. Her fingers almost reached her ankles. Almost.

Now safely out of reach, Kaguya moved more leisurely. She took her time to line a hand up with me, and a scattershot cone of rainbow bullets blasted down. I jerked to the side, but was nowhere near fast enough to dodge them. The bullets smashed into the floor around me, making it erupt into dozens of pockmarks. One sliced through the edge of my calf, a stab of pain that made my leg crumple out from under me. I tumbled off balance and clutched the wound, letting the ofuda in my hand drift to the floor.

"Did you think it was going to be that easy?" Kaguya fired a similar burst toward Maribel, who managed to avoid it by diving aside. I started pushing myself to my feet, only for another silver beam of energy to blast within centimeters of me, close enough that I could feel the heat wash over my face. I half-dodged away from the attack, left half-kneeling on my weakened leg.

Her aim wasn't very good, I realized. She could possess Kaguya, but didn't necessarily have her millennia of experience at combat. Unfortunately, the Bright Lady seemed to have noticed too. She levitated higher, now eight or nine meters off the ground. A bright point of light gleamed in the palm of her outstretched, growing in intensity. If she couldn't get the hang of aiming, it seemed, she was just going to make an attack big enough to scour me from the face of the earth regardless. Maribel shouted, "Renko, get ready!"

Maribel opened a gap and leapt into it. Another opened in the air a few meters above Kaguya.

Maribel couldn't fly, but she could fall just as well as anybody. She gave a shriek of terror as she plummeted out of the gap, but her aim was true. She landed directly on top of Kaguya, and the force of the impact made Kaguya buck down a few meters in the air before her flight stabilized. Maribel's arms wrapped around Kaguya's neck, and she barely managed to keep herself from falling to the floor.

"Get off of me!" Kaguya's attack discharged, and she started bucking around in the air, squirming and kicking in an attempt to pitch Maribel off of her. Maribel kept a death grip on her, while her legs pedaled in the air as she tried wrapping them around Kaguya's waist. With neither of them able to get any leverage, it was a ridiculous-looking fight.

I struggled to my feet again and hobbled toward the two as fast as I could. With Maribel clinging to her, Kaguya couldn't maintain her altitude, and the two were sinking in the air. The Bright Lady had recovered from her initial surprise, though, and was no longer bothering to try clawing and tugging at Maribel's hands. Instead, she twisted around to awkwardly shoot lances of energy back over her shoulder, trying to blast Maribel off instead. Maribel had to squirm and jerk around on her back to avoid them, and was slowly losing her grip, even as Kaguya drifted lower. Finally, Kaguya grabbed onto Maribel's wrist, and in a burst of white light and a sickening sizzling noise, discharged an attack directly into it.

Maribel gave a squeal of pain, and her arm jerked backward. She plummeted briefly, before her other hand gripped onto the neckline of Kaguya's shirt. In an instant, the delicate equilibrium was upset. They bobbed and weaved through the air as the fight resumed... and drifted just low enough that I was able to lunge upward, slapping an ofuda onto Kaguya's ankle.

The paper clung to her, and the pair dropped like a rock. They'd still been a couple of meters up, and they had no opportunity to brace themselves. They tumbled to the ground, and I wasted no time in diving in, tackling Kaguya and slamming another ofuda onto her arm. Maribel still had a death grip on her from behind, and even though she looked half-dazed from the fall, managed to hold on as Kaguya kicked and thrashed on top of her. The acrid smoke from the ofuda made my eyes water, and a well-aimed kick from Kaguya knocked the stack from my hands. I kept up the assault with the few I had left, slapping them against Kaguya one after another.

I kept going until I ran out of ofuda, and only then did I realize that Kaguya had stopped resisting. She was almost limp now, with a dazed look in her eyes, and her breaths were small and shivering. The last few ofuda I'd stuck to her hadn't even reacted. They were just laying on her skin like normal pieces of paper. Maribel and I were panting in exertion, but it wasn't audible over the now-constant background noise of the fire alarm.

"Merry," I said, in between gasps for air. "Are you okay?"

"Um... more or less." She gave Kaguya one last cautious look, then eased herself up and pushed her way out from under her. Just that much was enough to make her wince in pain, and the reason was obvious—there was a deep, scorched wound in her wrist, where Kaguya had blasted it. She pulled the arm in to hold it sorely to her stomach. "Do you think we got her...?"

I glanced to Kaguya. She still wasn't moving, but it only made sense. I thought back to how I'd felt the times I'd touched ofuda while possessed. That mind-numbing feeling of having the Bright Lady's hooks ripped out of my head... yeah, even Kaguya could take a while to walk that off.

But had we gotten the Bright Lady? How could we even _tell_? "... probably," I said, and scooted back off of Kaguya, myself. "You heard her. She wouldn't have just run away."

"There's no mist, though..."

"Maybe she's not like the others," I said, and moved to Maribel's side. "Here, let me see your arm."

"Hmm? I... think it will be okay," Maribel said, and winced as she offered it up.

I took Maribel's wrist in my hand and slid closer to her.

Then, I ground my thumb into the wound and lunged in. Maribel yelped in pain, jolting beneath me, and I took advantage of it. I grabbed her throat with my other hand and shoved my thumb against her windpipe.

"You know what?" My mouth moved, speaking thoughts that I only now realized weren't my own. "I should have done this a long time ago." My other hand moved up to join the strangling one, and I increased the pressure. Maribel thrashed beneath me, but I moved forward, straddling her waist and pinning her to the ground. With one arm useless from the injury, she was left with only a single hand, pushing and clawing at me uselessly.

"If I'd killed one of you as soon as I got the chance, we wouldn't be here today," I said through gritted teeth. "So, this is how Maribel dies, Renko. The last thing she sees will be you smiling down at her as you strangle her to death."

I was locked inside my head, helplessly spectating. Like the time in the warehouse, it was hard for me to even care. On some level, I knew that this was wrong, but I could feel only apathy and disgust toward Maribel. Certainly nothing that would merit resisting the Bright Lady's control. Beneath my thoughts, like a mantra, I could hear the constant stream of lies that she was slipping into my thoughts. _Maribel is the one who started this. She's holding you back. She's only using you to dodge her own mistakes. She'll abandon you when it's all over. It's better this way. You hate her so much..._

I'd seen it before, though. It wasn't like in the warehouse, when I'd had no idea what I was dealing with. I knew the Bright Lady now. I knew what she was, and what she fed off of.

Maribel's lips opened, and she wheezed out some wordless sound. Tears were glistening in the corners of her eyes. Something about that tugged up old memories, untainted by the Bright Lady's influence. Maribel laying against my side in tears, a time that her nightmares had been too unbearable. Maribel slumped over a desk and napping, when she was supposed to be cramming for finals. Maribel laughing as she tugged me along down the overgrown path to an abandoned shrine. Maribel's eyes lighting up as we plotted out our best guesses at the location of Izanagi Objects.

I clung to those memories. They were my life preserver, the only thing keeping me afloat in the flood of hatred the Bright Lady was using to drown my resistance. I screamed and struggled for my body to listen to me, but there was nothing. In front of my eyes, Maribel's struggles were growing weaker. From the corner of my eye, I could see Kaguya beginning to stir, but at this rate, she wouldn't make it in time. I felt something inside of Maribel's neck pop, and my thumb sank further into it. My thumbnail dug into the soft skin under the pressure, and a trickle of warm blood ran down my hand.

The hand twitched.

I twitched my hand, rather. It quickly reasserted its grip on Maribel's throat, but I redoubled my efforts now, cycling through those good memories of Maribel like a mantra and focusing my entire will on my hand. In faltering little bursts, I could shrug off the Bright Lady's control for a second here and there. Even that was a monumental effort, feeling like I was burning a hole in my mind from sheer concentration. I could barely buy Maribel enough time to take a breath, let alone to accomplish anything.

Instead, in a single desperate motion, I jerked the hand backward and slammed it to the floor. The fallen ofuda were still waiting there, and my hand landed on one. A burst of smoke followed, and the now-familiar spike of pain and blurring vision.

Purifying energy burnt into my body. I could feel the Bright Lady's control falter. My other hand shivered, torn between strangling Maribel and releasing her, but the still-burning ofuda was doing its job. The hand relaxed, and with a gagging, wheezing sound, Maribel gasped for air. I coaxed a longer burst of motion from my body and grabbed another ofuda, clenching my fingers around it even as the nerve endings screamed.

The Bright Lady's grip weakened further and I dove to the floor. I moved frantically, rolling like a dog, grabbing ofuda with burning, numb fingers, slapping them on my arms and face, grinding them against myself. I was surrounded in a cloud of white smoke, and the pain made my motions jerky and erratic. A scream came from my throat, and I don't even know if it was mine or hers.

Soon, I could no longer even move. My entire body clenched up in pain, shuddering and twitching like I was in the throes of a seizure. A dizzying numbness ripped its way through my head. All over my body, the ofuda crackled and shriveled up as they discharged their payloads.

And in my head, a screaming psychic maelstrom, as images, memories, and emotions, some of them not even mine, exploded out and ricocheted around. I couldn't think. I barely even had a sense of identity. I was a tiny observer in the middle of a hurricane, and I could only watch as the force controlling my consciousness ripped itself apart.

It was the Bright Lady's death throes.

It subsided, and I collapsed to the ground, twitching, numb, and paralyzed. For a few seconds, I wasn't breathing, and I didn't even feel any terror at this. Some autonomous bit of my brain stem came back online, and I sucked in a shuddering breath. My eyes struggled to focus, but they couldn't. In the distance, I heard loud noises, and somebody—I couldn't even identify faces in that condition, but I think it was Kaguya—leaned into view, shouting words that I couldn't understand.

My body gave one final shudder, and black mist poured out.

* * *

The events that followed were a blur to my barely-conscious mind. I laid on the floor for what felt like an eternity. (It was about four minutes, according to Kaguya.) People moved around me. I could feel myself recovering, but it felt like I'd had a stroke. It was a couple of minutes before I could get any sense for where my limbs were, and a few more before I regained any memory of my situation. Right around the point that my eyes focused and I started getting feeling back into my limbs, Kaguya and Maribel leaned into view, carefully lifted me, and hauled me through a gap.

According to them, by the time Maribel had recovered from the shock of having another cloud of spiritual energy pour into her soul, the hotel was a madhouse. The crowd had figured out that the fight was over, and the few remaining guests had rushed in to try helping the injured—that is, all of us. The distant wail of sirens hinted that we wouldn't be left alone for long. Mokou was still dead, and I was dead-ish for most practical purposes. So, they did the only thing they could do: They evacuated through a gap.

We emerged onto the roof of the building, just in time to hear a fire truck come pulling up.

Mokou resurrected. My own body was slower to recover. After five minutes, I could give weak twitches of my arms. Ten minutes in, and I could look toward somebody when they talked to me, but not understand them.

We'd been sitting on the rooftop for twenty minutes, with the high-altitude winds whistling around us, before I had the ability to both understand and answer questions.

"Renko," Maribel said softly, crouching down in front of me and cupping my cheek to make sure she got my attention. I think she'd done it a few times before, but my memory was pretty fuzzy. I was barely able to recognize that she looked concerned. Frightened, maybe. "Renko, can you hear me?"

"Yeah..." My lips felt heavy and numb, but I got the word out. "Are you... okay? Sorry for... choking."

Maribel touched the front of her throat self-consciously. When I'd last seen it, it had been bloody, with livid bruises in a band where my fingers had sat. Now, it was unharmed. As was her wrist. Her body didn't show a hint of the life-or-death struggle we'd been through. "Oh, um. It didn't bother me for long. Mokou... Mokou says that an injury like that shouldn't even slow a youkai down."

It took a few seconds for my malfunctioning brain to make sense out of that. "Y-youkai?"

"Um. I did heal pretty fast after that cloud came out. I'm not getting any urges to run around eating people, though." She smiled and reached down, sliding her hand into mine and giving it a squeeze. "We'll figure it out together when you're better, okay?"


	29. Entity File 8: The Bright Lady

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #8  
The Bright Lady**

 **Type:** Youkai  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Naturally intangible and capable of invisibility and flight. Capable of possessing humans.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Innate youkai abilities.  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** Multiple incidents and locations.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Vulnerable to youkai extermination tools. The Bright Lady also depended on inducing some degree of apathy or hatred in her victims to keep them from resisting her influences. This could be countered to some degree by positive emotions, so they could be considered a countermeasure.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human-level.  
 **Size:** Intangible, but human-sized.  
 **Other Notes:** The Bright Lady is the only one of the youkai from the incident who was able and willing to clearly tell us about her goals, so she's easily the one that I know the most about. Unfortunately, this means that I had to talk to her. She was open about her dependence on human despair and suspicion, and her actions were usually consistent with trying to maximize these at any given time. The only thing that hinted at motives beyond that was her apparent desire to control Kaguya Hourisan's (Entity File #10) body, which can still be viewed as acquiring a useful tool for furthering her goals.

Judging by my own experiences, I think that the Bright Lady's possession involved two different levels of control. At the most basic level, she was capable of controlling a victim's body. It was possible for a sufficiently determined victim to resist this influence, and her control seemed to work better when the victim wasn't aware that anything was amiss. So, she also subconsciously manipulated her victims, filling their head with thoughts and emotions that were designed to make the victim feel apathetic or positively toward the actions she made them take. She also displayed the ability to temporarily disrupt memory formation in order to make a victim perform actions that they couldn't even remember afterward.

Since the Bright Lady was capable of turning invisible and intangible, very few practical countermeasures existed. Mokou has told me about techniques that can be used to resist possession, but they require esoteric spiritual training. I suspect that a target with enough willpower could have outright resisted her control, but this remains purely theoretical.


	30. Chapter 20

"Alright," Mokou said. "No playing around this time. I'm going to rip your spine out, princess."

"I'll be sure to do the same to you," Kaguya said, a relaxed smile on her face.

"No, see, I'm not going to give you the _chance_ , because this time you're going to be bleeding on the floor after—"

"A NEW CENTURY OF BLOODSPORT BEGINS." The announcer's voice interrupted them, and they both shifted their attention forward, tensing up. "READY? FIGHT!"

The two hunched forward over the cabinet, frantically smacking buttons and tugging at controls. Onscreen, their characters dove into a frantic battle with each other.

The incident at the Tokyo Moonrise Garden hotel had been a bit hard to understand for the rest of the world, even the other hotel guests who lived through it. Between the low lighting, the panicked crowd, and the sheer oddness of everything that happened, the truth never quite got out. There had been fighting. All of the witnesses could agree on that much. Some of them said that guns were involved. Some insisted that there were fireworks. A small handful dared to mention that they thought they'd seen somebody flying. What few recordings people had taken were dark and hard to make out. Thankfully, nobody had gotten a good picture of most of our faces.

Very few people had gotten hurt, though. One or two had gotten roughed up a bit during the stampede out the door, and there were a few concussions and a single broken rib among the possessed people that Mokou had beaten up. All of the real damage had been to the hotel itself from the evacuating guests and the Bright Lady's attacks. Between the injured guests, the damage to the building, and the mystery around the strange fight, the management had announced that they'd be closing the hotel for a short while. All the guests had gotten offered a replacement room for the remainder of their stay, at one of the other local hotels the company owned.

And the Bright Lady, it turned out, had actually rented a room for almost a week, supplementing Maribel's savings with quite a bit of money she'd scammed.

Okay, so, maybe it wasn't moral of us to take advantage of this, but Kaguya couldn't remember enough details about where she'd gotten the money for us to have any hope of tracking the rightful owners down. Their money was gone for good, and we really needed the hotel room, anyway. We were otherwise low on funds, even with the leftover scam money Kaguya still had on her. Back home, the Kyoto police department was probably still very curious about how I'd walked out of jail. Above all, we all needed some time to recover after everything that had happened.

So, we turned it into a mini-vacation. I showed Kaguya and Mokou around to some of the more appropriate tourist attractions (and by appropriate I mean 'cheap,' since we were on a budget.) We walked around the city. I tried to introduce them to what local cuisine I could on our meager funds. We did everything, generally, that I would have rather been doing over the past week or two instead of getting possessed, fighting youkai, and laying around on deserted islands.

After days of relaxation, though, we still had business to settle. With the Bright Lady defeated, there was only one thing left, a single matter that we needed to resolve while Kaguya and Mokou were still with us: their bet about who could defeat the most youkai. Nobody had been able to keep a clean count, after all. The two had defeated dozens of chimeras in the warehouse, and in the darkness and confusion, nobody could even guess how many each had killed.

With no way to discern the truth, they'd decided to go for a tie-breaker. (Well, okay, Mokou had. I don't think Kaguya had ever actually been that interested in the competition to begin with.) Mokou had wanted to resolve it with some kind of non-lethal projectile fight, but there wasn't exactly room for that in Tokyo. Instead, she asked Maribel and I for some other form of competition.

And, well, here we were. The International Laser Palace is the biggest extant arcade in the world, and Bleeding Knuckles III is currently considered the most balanced fighting game by the competitive community. It was the closest thing I could think of to letting them fight an actual duel. ... well, okay, it actually wasn't, but it was the best thing I could come up with on our limited time and budget. Besides, neither of them had so much as touched a video game before, so they were evenly matched.

Kind of.

In the same pathetic way that pitting two toddlers against each other in a knife fight would be considered even.

Mokou seemed to be under the impression that she needed to jerk her body in the direction of her character's movements to give them more impact. It made her a safety hazard to pretty much anybody within a meter of the cabinet. Her hands flew over the controls, mashing random combinations of buttons with no clear understanding of what they actually did. Kaguya, meanwhile, was focused on the machine, but didn't seem to have gotten the idea of the controls—she was putting in long, meticulous sequences of button pushes, like she was under the impression that she was trying to type instead of activating individual actions.

Kaguya's character was hopping in place, occasionally punching or blocking nothing. Mokou's, on the other hand, was leaping around the screen like a frog on amphetamines, attacking the empty air.

Ten seconds into the match, Mokou landed some kind of overhead kick on Kaguya by pure chance. Kaguya's health bar budged a fraction of a centimeter. "Yeah! Yeah, kick right to the face!" Mokou shouted, as her character thrashed the air above Kaguya's head. "How much is a kick worth?"

"Not much. You'll need about twenty more of them," I said.

"I think I've got this..." Kaguya pursed her lips in concentration, punching in a series of button presses. She somehow got them in fast enough, and her character leapt up, delivering the tenth in an ongoing series of uppercuts. This one was actually intentional, though, and she retaliated against Mokou's character for fraction of her health bar in return. "Oh! That was nice."

"Yeah, well..." Mokou figured out how to stop hopping for long enough to land in front of Kaguya's character, then hit her with a single punch to the face.

The fight, feeble and sputtering though it was, had begun in earnest.

"They're actually not bad, for people who've never touched video games before," Maribel said quietly, sliding into place next to me.

"Mmhm." As Maribel's attention focused on the game in front of us, I snuck a peek at her. I still found it hard to believe how quickly she'd healed after the fight. I still had a gash on the back of my leg that needed its dressings changed twice a day, and there were still pale pink traces of the cuts and burns on my face. By comparison, Maribel had shrugged off every mark of the violence within minutes of the fight's end. I kept expecting them to come back, crushing her windpipe anew as reality itself asserted that no human being could possibly heal that quickly.

But there was no way Maribel was a human anymore.

Even in the dim, neon-tainted light of the arcade, I could see it. It was hard to pin down exactly what it was about her, but she looked ever-so-slightly unreal. Her skin was too smooth. Her hair hanged in a way that just didn't quite seem natural, like a model in a shampoo commercial. Her eyes had an attentive look that made it feel like she could see into your soul. It wasn't that she was more beautiful now, so much as that she was... less concrete, like the laws of physics no longer quite applied to her. Maybe Maribel was no longer a person so much as the _idea_ of a person.

The fight was heating up now, as Mokou managed to corner Kaguya's character and figured out how to keep herself in one place while attacking. Her character convulsed in an unlikely-looking series of attacks, while Kaguya's flinched backward, futilely trying to block a dozen times in a row. It was no use, though, and she soon flew into the air, blood leaking from her mouth. The announcer bellowed, "K.O!"

"Oh, good job," Maribel said. "It was best two out of three, right?"

"It _was_ two out of three, but Mokou insisted that we expand it to three out of five," Kaguya said, greatly summarizing what had been a twenty-minute argument.

"And that..." Mokou finally gave up on trying to beat Kaguya's unconscious body onscreen, and shifted her attention back to us, "Was number three. That means I win. You _lose_ , princess. How's it feel to have things not go your way for once?"

"You won, yes," Kaguya conceded, far more gracefully than I ever could have in the face of such gloating.

"That means you've got to grant me five requests," Mokou said, leaning in and grinning.

"That was the agreement, yes."

"That means you've got to do _whatever I say_."

"So I understand."

Clearly, Mokou had been hoping to get more of a rise out of rubbing it in. She scowled and crossed her arms, but it didn't take long for her mood to perk up. "Alright, first request—"

"You're starting already?"

"I've had a lot of time to think about them. Besides, this is the simple one. The others can wait. Anyway, first request..." Mokou uncrossed her arms and pointed at the ground. "You're going to get down, apologize for everything you've done, and beg my forgiveness."

"... excuse me?"

"You heard me. I want to hear every terrible thing you've ever done, and how you're going to try to not be such a pain from now on."

"Um..." Maribel glanced around us uncomfortably. Even though it was a weekday afternoon, the place was fairly crowded. "I don't know if this is the best place for that."

"Nah, it's perfect," Mokou said. "Let her admit all this stuff in front of a crowd. We agreed to fulfill any requests the winner had, and this is what I want."

"And you'd really like me to apologize for everything I've done, over my entire life?" Kaguya said.

Mokou's grin sharpened. " _Everything._ Go on, get to it."

Kaguya held her gaze for a moment, then inclined her head ever-so-slightly. "Very well." She sank down onto her knees, then bent lower, until her forehead was pressed to the grimy arcade floor in a kowtow. Mokou's gloating had already turned a few heads our way, and now that Kaguya was bowing on the floor, a few bystanders had stopped to watch the proceedings.

"Let me begin, great and honorable Mokou of the Fujiwara family, by listing the many sins that I have unjustly committed against you," Kaguya said, with a slight touch of melodrama, but otherwise sounding dead serious. "When your father, in his great benevolence, chose to bless such a child of low position as myself with his attention, my indiscretion led me to spurn his generosity, bringing shame to both your family name and to myself. I humbly beg your forgiveness, just and kind miss Fujiwara, although I must certainly judge myself unworthy of it."

Kaguya went quiet, and it took a moment or two for Mokou to realize that this was a prompt for her to say something. She looked bewildered, actually. I don't think this was how the exchange had played out in her head. "Uh. Yeah. Sure. Wait, I mean, no. You're not forgiven. But it's good that you admit it." She rubbed at the back of her neck, glancing aside uncomfortably. "Keep talking about how terrible you are."

"As you wish," Kaguya said. Her head hadn't risen from the floor for a moment. "In my greedy and shortsighted desire for immortality, I broke the greatest taboos and spurned the benevolence of the gods and buddhas, thinking only of myself. I must consider this the least of my wicked acts, however, for my greatest sin was allowing others to fall prey to the same snares, cursing you to immortality as well. Oh, wise and benevolent miss Fujiwara, if you would only ask it of me, I would flay my body with reeds and cast myself into the deepest well. I would pull my eyes from my head and—"

"A-ah, yeah, you probably deserve that. Do all that stuff, but skip ahead a little." Mokou said, clearly getting rather more uncomfortable with this situation. She'd taken a few steps backward to put some distance between herself and Kaguya, and was doing her best to look completely uninvolved with whatever Kaguya was doing down there on the floor. A small crowd was watching the two now, drawn in by Kaguya's increasingly louder proclamations.

"I would only ask that you allow me this, to name my many crimes, so that you may know the extent of my wickedness! For I have made both the heavens and the earth weep with my many—"

"Yeah, we get it, you're really terrible...!" Mokou said. "Are you done yet?"

"I, wretched fool that I am, ask that you allow me to continue, for my heart is heavy, and my sins are—"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, you suck, got it! We're done now." Half of the room had turned to see what all the noise was. Mokou hurried forward, grabbing Kaguya under an armpit and hauling her upward. "Done now!" she repeated, twice as loud for the crowd's benefit.

A few spectators lingered, but when a few more seconds passed and Kaguya didn't seem to be lapsing back into apologies, they dispersed. Mokou slowly allowed herself to relax, although her face was going to be beet red for a few more minutes. "You did that on purpose," she snapped.

"Did what?" Kaguya said, as calm as ever. "You did ask for a very thorough apology."

"You... made it all weird!"

"That was the short version, actually. In formal Lunarian etiquette, it isn't unheard of for a single apology to last for six hours. I could demonstrate, if you'd like. … oh beautiful and noble miss Fujiwara, whose breath causes the flowers to bloom and whose tears are the envy of even the—"

"Not going to be necessary!" Mokou said, nearly shouting the words, and turned to me and Maribel in desperation. "We don't even have time for that, right? We have to get going soon, don't we?"

Maribel was choking back laughter with tears in the corners of her eyes, but managed to stammer out an answer. "A-ah, our train doesn't leave for two hours...!"

"You could probably squeeze in another ninety minutes of apologies, if you'd like," I said.

"But you need to pack and stuff, right?"

Her voice was almost pleading. I took pity on her. "You're probably right. We shouldn't wait too long if we're going to get you home by nightfall."

* * *

The packing, and the trip that followed, passed in relative silence. We made a little small talk, but nothing that addressed the landmark occasion that was rapidly approaching. Mokou avoided even acknowledging Kaguya, out of the fear that she might burst into a new round of overwrought apologies at the slightest provocation. We packed. We checked out of the hotel. We walked a long way to the train station, because Maribel couldn't figure out how to gap us to our destination and our budget wasn't going to let us afford a bus or cab. Even on the train, we didn't talk much. I wasn't sure what to say.

The train station nearest to Gensokyo (and again, I'm not giving any hints to exactly _where_ it is) was kilometers from the barrier. The walk was all uphill, too, so we couldn't talk much. I have never missed a rental car so much in my life.

Soon enough, though, Maribel spotted the barrier farther up the slope, and with another fifteen minutes of searching, she'd found a spot where she could open it. "Here should be fine," she said, laying her bag on the ground. Another advantage of rental cars: We would have had somewhere to keep our stuff instead of packing it with us. "Um. Will this work for you two? Can you get home from here?"

"Yeah, sure," Mokou said. "We're on the right side of Youkai Mountain, and that's all that matters."

"Great! One second, then..."

Maribel turned around. This time, her actions came much easier than the struggle she'd shown on our first trip to Gensokyo. She reached forward, and her fingers slipped into some unseen obstacle. She pulled her hands aside, like she was drawing a curtain open. The air crumpled and folded between them, spreading apart to reveal the landscape below.

I was relieved to see that the hole in the boundary was the same as I was used to, not the eye-filled gaps that Maribel used for moving from point to point. This time, more of Gensokyo was visible through it. We could still see the bamboo forest off to the right, a vibrant green blotch on the landscape, but in front of us stretched rolling green foothills, and beyond them, a forest that led up to the slopes of a towering mountain. Maribel looked a bit surprised at this, but stayed focused until the gap was almost a meter wide, then hesitantly stepped back. It stayed open, a portal to another plane of existence, hanging there in the air like it was barely even noteworthy.

Maribel pulled her hands from the portal. It was done. Nobody budged a step.

"Well," Kaguya said, after some time. "This is it, then."

"I guess it is," Maribel said.

And we all lapsed into silence again.

This wouldn't do. As the president of the Sealing Club and the one who had started all of this to begin with, I figured that it fell on me to ease things along. "Um, I just wanted to say..." I said, and stepped forward before I'd quite had time to gather my thoughts. "... Maribel and I would probably be dead if it weren't for you two. I mean. It was kind of a huge favor to ask for just because one of you knew my grandma. There's no way we could ever repay you, but..."

"Renko," Kaguya said softly, "please don't think of it like that. Apart from getting possessed, it was a fun experience. Thank you for having us."

"Ah, uh, yeah," Mokou said. "Don't worry about it. Besides, I got to see the outside world again. That's worth something."

"Right, but even so... thank you."

"Thank you very much," Maribel echoed.

"You're welcome," Kaguya said, with a soft smile. "Maybe we can do it again sometime, without the monsters."

"I guess it wouldn't be so bad," Mokou said. "I guess you know where to find us now, huh? You could always come visit sometime. … just have to avoid being eaten by youkai."

"Maybe we will," Maribel said, and stepped forward to pull Kaguya into a hug. She held it for a few seconds before saying, "I'll miss you guys."

It set off a chain reaction of hugs and goodbyes, one that we couldn't escape once it was started. Maribel cried at a few points. I cried a little. Even Mokou teared up for a few seconds.

The end result had already been decided, though. With a few last goodbyes, Mokou and Kaguya lifted their bags—now heavier, thanks to their newly-acquired outside world clothes—and stepped through the hole in the barrier and into Gensokyo. Maribel and I silently watched their dwindling forms walk away for a few minutes.

"Well," I finally said. "I guess we should get going."

"Yeah..."

"It's almost an hour walk back to the train station, and sunset is in twenty minutes. We'll be lucky to make it back before dark."

"Mmhm."

Maribel's eyes hadn't moved from the gap. "We'll have to come back in the summer," I said, stepping up next to her. "It will take a long time to establish a base camp in Gensokyo."

"Or the next time we have a long weekend," Maribel said.

"Yeah, or that. Although, um. I might not have any weekends for a while. I... think I have a few weeks of coursework to make up."

"I got an e-mail from one of my professors last night, telling me that I'd missed an exam and there wasn't any way I could pass the course now."

"Ah... yeah. I think I've failed a few of mine. Guess we'll be spending most of the summer with makeup classes, won't we?"

"You're probably still wanted by the police, too..."

"Yeah, there's that. I'll... have to try to clear my name as soon as I'm home."

"And neither of us have any money left."

"Cup noodles and vending machine food for the next month."

"Renko," Maribel said. Gently, but with an insistent edge to her voice. "We should go."

I didn't need elaboration to know that she didn't mean 'go home.'

I knew that I shouldn't. The sensible thing to do would be to go home, to pick up the broken pieces of my life and fit them back together, making everything stable and predictable again. Some day, weeks or months from now, we could return and start exploring this new land carefully, with a safe existence in Kyoto to fall back on if anything went wrong.

I tried to picture myself doing it. Going back to classes, probably spending half a week just convincing the Kyoto police department that I wasn't an international terrorist, explaining my absence to my parents. I couldn't. After killing two youkai with my bare hands in a matter of days, concerns like that felt flimsy and insignificant.

Behind us, back down the hill, I could see out over the countryside. It was similar to the view I'd seen from Fuji. With the night quickly approaching, the lights were turning on, and they stretched out below us. Even here, in a fairly rural part of the country, you could barely walk a kilometer without running into a house or road, let alone signs of humanity. It was a world made for humans. It was safe. It no longer held much allure for me.

The study of physics, the search for truth in this universe around us, is the most noble and fruitful of human pursuits. I believed that when I chose to major in it. I still believe it, to some degree. But the greatest mysteries in physics were resolved generations ago. We had dissected the universe, and we'd found its secrets to be painful ones—faster-than-light travel was nothing but a fairy tale. Entropy was an undeniable fact of existence. If I studied it for my entire life, dedicated my heart and soul to it, I might one day get to name an elementary particle, some infinitesimally tiny thing that you can only detect with ten thousand tons of equipment.

Here, in front of me, were far greater mysteries.

"We shouldn't waste any time, then," I said. "Those two will leave us behind if we don't hurry up."

Maribel looked at me in shock. "You're sure?"

"It was your idea..."

"I know. I just expected us to argue about it for an hour."

I turned to look into the opening again, shaking my head. "No. You're right. If you're a youkai now, it's only fair for you to meet other youkai and decide for yourself what that means. And Merry... wherever you go, I go."

"O-oh. Well then." Maribel's gaze followed mine back toward the hole. She took a breath to steady herself and slid her hand into mine. "We'll do it like before. On your signal, club president."

"No second thoughts? Once we're in, turning back won't be so easy."

"None!"

"It could be pretty scary."

"You're an experienced youkai hunter and I'm a scary youkai, right? I'm sure we can handle ourselves. Now stop stalling!"

"Right, right. On the count of three. Ready?"

"Mmhm."

"Then here goes. One... two... three!"

Maribel and I stepped into the opening, hand in hand. In front of us, a new world unfolded.


	31. Entity File 4: Maribel Hearn

**Sealing Club Supernatural Entity File #4  
Maribel Hearn (updated)**

 **Type:** Youkai (Former human.)  
 **Supernatural Abilities:** Sensing and manipulation of boundaries, youkai-like durability.  
 **Nature of Abilities:** Naturally occurring, along with youkai influence  
 **Time and Place of Observation:** N/A, is a Sealing Club member.  
 **Possible Weaknesses:** Don't even think about it.  
 **Intelligence Level:** Human.  
 **Size:** Human.  
 **Other Notes:** Vice president of the Sealing Club. Her abilities are documented in Experiment Logs #7-10, #12-15, #17, and #19. To summarize them: She has the ability to sense 'boundaries,' the borders where one object or concept begins and another ends. Even though something like this would seem to be entirely based on human perception, she's demonstrated the ability to manipulate them, opening gateways between distant points that are only conceptually related.

When I first met Maribel, her control over this ability was weak and sporadic at best. Following the TORIFUNE ruins incident (Case File #25), she began seeing into other planes of existence, apparently as a side effect of being bitten by a chimera (Entity File #5). After the entire incident stemming from the Noguchi Amphitheater attack, Maribel's powers have grown, and she has evolved into something a bit more than human. Her control over boundaries now extends to regular creation of linked holes in space/time, which we informally refer to as gaps, and the ability to see and manipulate almost any conceptual line of demarcation that we've thought to test. She is far more durable than a normal human being, surviving even a protracted strangulation attempt without apparent injury.

Maribel's abilities progressed rapidly after absorbing the essence of the Dark Thing (Entity File #7), the Watcher (Entity File #9), and the Bright Lady (Entity File #8.) The mechanism for this is uncertain, but we've put together a few decent theories. Considering that these youkai were formed from Maribel's fears to begin with, it's possible that physically eliminating them was enough to act as the catalyst in her ongoing growth. It's also possible that by having her fears externalized as youkai and then re-absorbing them, she gained some of their youkai nature. We're still actively investigating this, and I will update the file when we have results.

We don't yet know if Maribel's inhuman nature will result in any further changes, or if it has already changed her lifespan, dietary requirements, or other physiological facts of life. An examination by Eirin Yagokoro (Entity file not written yet) has confirmed that she's a spiritual being now.

More observations to follow.


	32. Postface

There are a few final comments that I'd like to make, which weren't appropriate to place at the beginning of the report.

First of all, I'd like to thank miss Eirin Yagokoro and the other residents of the manor Eientei for their hospitality over the past six weeks. Without it, Maribel and I would have had a much rougher time adjusting to a strange land.

I would like to thank mister Rinnosuke Morichika for his assistance in finding and setting up one of the few operational computers in Gensokyo, without which this report would have taken much, much longer.

We're not yet sure when we'll be coming back to Kyoto, or as our hosts refer to the area beyond the border in aggregate, 'the outside world.' Adjusting to life in Gensokyo is taking time. We've only traveled beyond the bamboo forest twice, so there's still practically an entire world we haven't seen. There is that youkai similar to Maribel, who we still need to track down and talk to. Honestly, we could spend a lifetime exploring the mysteries of this place. At the end, we'd probably be the foremost supernatural experts in the world, and we still wouldn't be done.

I don't think that's what we're going to do, though.

I think I understand now, why grandma Sumireko felt the need to keep exploring new planes even after discovering Gensokyo. This universe is full of mysteries, and not all of the answers are here, either. There are hidden planes where the gods live. There are hells and heavens and little pocket worlds where the tanuki go to make their schemes, I'm told. There are civilizations in the far corner of the dream realm, where no waking soul has ever traveled. There's even the outside world, the only place I know of where you can watch videos of somebody else's cats from two continents away. I hope that in time, Maribel and I will see all of them.

— signed by club president Renko Usami, 18/11/2069. Witnessed by club vice president Maribel Hearn.


End file.
